Blogs: November 2019

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have regularly positioned themselves with an eye on each other and another on primary voters, donors and the state’s interest group universe, each trying to occupy the more conservative position. But in their responses to the recurring mass shootings in Texas, that has changed: The two have edged into conversations about “red flag” laws and increased background checks — positions that have been off limits for Second Amendment advocates housed mostly, if not exclusively, in the Republican Party. While one might be tempted to attribute this repositioning to a rapid shift in public attitudes toward gun safety resulting from frequent, local mass shootings, public opinion data suggests that the more likely source of Abbott’s and Patrick’s change of heart might just be, as with so many other recent changes, an increasingly competitive electoral environment in which primary elections aren’t the only elections that matter.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit an Apple facility in Austin this week. We’ve rounded up the most recent polling data from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll on Texans’ attitudes toward the president. Our data archive also contains over 100 items related to Donald Trump going back to 2015. You can page through them by looking at a compendium of results tagged with his name at the Texas Politics Project website. If you use the “share” tag in the upper right hand corner of each individual graphics, you’ll find links for downloading graphics in multiple file formats, and buttons for social media sharing.

In an alternate universe envisioned by Beto O’Rourke’s fan base about a year ago, this weekend might have witnessed his breakout performance at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Dinner on Friday, followed by the release of a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll showing him leading the Democratic presidential primary field in his home state, poised to make a strong showing in Iowa and turn Texas blue while on the way to changing the Electoral College map for 2020 and beyond as he rid the country of Donald Trump and swept into the White House. The real world looks a little different today.

The October 2019 University of Texas / Texas Tribune Poll finds Texans polarized along partisan lines, as is much of the country, but also revealed some subtleties in the attitudes toward the major political story of the day.