Blogs: May 2022

In the aftermath of a tragedy as horrific as the one in Uvalde, Texas this week, many will wonder aloud whether Texas, and Texans, will have a reckoning with guns, its gun culture, and/or the recent laws that have made it increasingly easier to buy and own a gun in Texas?

For the last decade, no issues have more consistently occupied the consciousness of Texas Republican voters than immigration and border security. Evidence provided by multiple polls, considered in the context of politics and policies pursued by a generation of Texas Republican leadership, illustrates how nativism has become a major animating force in Republican politics in the state. While the term “nativism” carries negative connotations, nearly a decade of public polling data illustrate the pervasiveness of such attitudes among Republican voters, even if the term is likely to be hotly refuted by those whose attitudes and (in the case of public figures) rhetoric and policies make the description demonstrably apt.

In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank talk about public education attitudes captured in the latest UT/Texas Politics Project Poll in the context of recent school board elections and Gov. Greg Abbott's signals about private school vouchers.

The majority of the April University of Texas / Texas Politics Project poll focused on the many issues currently facing the state and the country, many of which we expect to continue being a large part of the public discussion in the lead-up to the November elections. Taking into account that the general election remians several months in the future, the items in the poll related to the election were designed to assess attitudes toward candidates in the the most prominent upcoming Texas run-offs, and eventually, in the general election. We've compiled some results to these items with a particular emphasis on the overall views and those among key groups of voters, whether in the upcoming general (e.g. independents, Hispanics, suburban voters), or in the upcoming primary run-offs (e.g. committed partisans, ideologues, and others).

In an election year marked by economic disruption, the unprecedented direction of state resources and public attention to the Texas-Mexico border, and signs of moving on from the fight against COVID-19, Texans’ legendary bullishness about the future of the state has turned bearish, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll.

This page compiles graphics for trends in job approval ratings of the current incumbents (President, Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators, U.S. President) that Texans assess on every poll. Bookmark the page for easy reference – we’ve also added similar graphics for trends in Texans’ assessment of conditions in Texas and the U.S., and some archival results for comparison with leaders no longer in office. This version updates the ratings with data from the April 2022 University of Texas / Texas Politics Project Poll.

The April 2022 UT/Texas Politics Project Poll adds a tenth assessment of Texans’ attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic to the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, adding to data collected in batteries from polls conducted in April, June, and October of 2020; February, April, June, August and October of 2021, and February and April of 2022. The time series allows reporters, researchers, elected leaders, public health officials, and the public a view of how Texans’ concerns about COVID, behaviors during the pandemic, and evaluations of the official responses have changed throughout a year of pandemic conditions in Texas.