Blogs: Border Security

While pluralities of Republican voters approved of several of the specific tactics the Trump administration has threatened to use to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants, the poll revealed reservations among significant shares of the same partisans who profess to support the immediate deportation of anyone in the country illegally.

James Henson talks with Jonathan Blitzer about the threads he pulled together in his profile of Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the March 17 issue of The New Yorker.

A new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds Texas voters broadly aligned with the overall agenda outlined by the governor, legislative leaders, and lawmakers, though there are stark, if familiar, differences between Republicans and Democrats over which issues lawmakers should prioritize in the ongoing legislative session.

James Henson & Joshua Blank look at baseline attitudes on likely agenda items in the run-up to Gov. Abbott's State of the State address and Lt. Gov. Patrick's declaration of Senate priorities.

Republicans remain broadly supportive of many of the Trump administration’s promises, but the relative priorities they assign to specific elements of Trump’s agenda reveal tensions — some inherent, some self-made — present in a body of promises made during the heat of a presidential campaign.

A review of extensive data on Latino attitudes in the Texas Politics Project polling archive in conjunction with election returns and exit polling suggests that the signs of Trump’s success in 2024 were hiding in plain sight, albeit amidst fluctuations in the data attributable to both methodological and empirical factors.

Article after article covering the prominence of immigration and border security in the Republican campaigns for U.S. Senate and president in Texas have rightly noted the long-established salience of immigration and the border to Republican voters, and the central role of these issues in the “closing arguments” of GOP candidates at the top of the ballot in Texas, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. But clear as this pattern is, it doesn’t explain why the issue maintains salience in the face of clear policy changes by the Biden administration, or the subsequent near-term decline in migrant traffic at the U.S.-Mexico border from historic highs in the last 11 months to the fewest encounters in the last four years. It can easily be made to seem like a puzzle: if the problem has been addressed and has abated, why is it still so important to Republican voters?

With early voting about to kick off in Texas, the latest 2024 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds former president Donald Trump leading Vice-President Kamala Harris 51% to 46% among likely voters in the presidential race in Texas. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was the choice of 2%, while Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver received 1%. In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Ted Cruz holds a 7-point lead among likely voters over his Democratic challenger, Congressman Colin Allred, 51% to 44%, with Libertarian Ted Brown the choice of 4%.

The Texas Politics Project polling team talks about results in the latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll.

Jim Henson talks with veteran observer of Texas politics Harvey Kronberg about the impact of the rebooted presidential race in Texas, and simmering politics in Texas over legislative elections, the grid and vouchers, and relations among Texas' big three.