Post Date: January 2024

Second Reading Podcast: Texas border politics go national

| By: Texas Politics Project

In a new Second Reading podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank discuss the convergence of national and Texas politics in the current national focus on immigration and border security.

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Second Reading Podcast: A busy Interlude in Texas Politics - from a SCOTUS Ruling on the Border to Paxton's about-face

| By: Texas Politics Project

In a new Second Reading podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank round up the flood of developments in politics in Texas, including the latest in the GOP presidential primary, the SCOTUS ruling against Texas, the DOJ's report on Uvalde, and more. 

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Second Reading Podcast: Donald Trump's support among Texas Republicans

| By: Texas Politics Project

In a new Second Reading podcast, Jim Henson and Joshua Blank look at Donald Trump's standing in Texas after his win in Iowa – and the long term roots of support for him among Texas Republicans. 

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Trending into 2024: How the past year in Texas public opinion sets the stage for the election year in Texas

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

Texans’ attitudes about politics – whether about issues, ideas, institutions, political leaders, or any other political subject – are only one of several persistent elements that shape how the state’s political system works. Political elites, by definition, make decisions that are far more consequential than any individual vote. Structural elements like the economy, international flows of migrants, or climate change ripple through politics. But in a democratic political system, even one experiencing duress, public opinion interacts with all of these factors, responding to context and to the actions of elites while also acting as part of a feedback loop among all three. Below are nine observations drawn from University of Texas/Texas Politics Project polling data to provide context as the 2024 elections unfold.

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Despite the record of the 88th Legislature, GOP legislators have trouble displaying enough of the Right Stuff to fend off widespread challenges to incumbents.

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

The last two legislative sessions saw Texas Republicans successfully championing new laws that gained national attention for testing the boundaries of Constitutionality and public acceptance. From Texas’ de facto ban on abortion, with its creation of a civil bounty-hunting enforcement mechanism, to the assertion of state authority over border and immigration enforcement, the Republican-led legislature and leading statewide elected officials have invested an enormous amount of political capital in implementing measures expected to appeal strongly to the most conservative corners of the Texas GOP. Yet public opinion polling and the emerging dynamics of the 2024 GOP primary suggest that for Republican legislative incumbents, the threshold for demonstrating that you have the right stuff to avoid being challenged from the right in this year’s heated primary is at best a moving target.

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Second Reading Podcast: Public opinion and 2024 primary politics in Texas

| By: Texas Politics Project

In the first Second Reading Podcast of 2024, Jim Henson and Joshua Blank look at how voters' assessments of the extended 2023 session provide part of the context of the 2024 Republican primary in Texas.

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Texas Republicans’ views of January 6 align with views of the 2020 election and Donald Trump

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

Three years after rioters violently overran the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the counting of electoral college votes to ratify Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, the deep divisions and decay in institutional trust that fueled the riot remain starkly apparent in Texas public opinion.  

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