Second Reading: Shutdown politics and public opinion in Texas
James Henson and Joshua Blank dig into what UT/Texas Politics Project polling can tell us about the public opinion context for the government shutdown in Texas.
Read more...James Henson and Joshua Blank dig into what UT/Texas Politics Project polling can tell us about the public opinion context for the government shutdown in Texas.
Read more...James Henson and Joshua Blank look at the arc of the President's standing in Texas and how his ratings intersect persistent economic concerns in the state. Plus, they consider approaches to (very) early polling in the 2026 U.S. Senate race.
Read more...The August 2025 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds Texas voters in broad agreement with the call to respond to issues related to flooding and more reductions in property taxes, but show significant partisan divisions in response to the drawing of new maps and most other issues on the special session agenda – and finds voters still worried about the economy.
The UT/Texas Politics Project Poll team – – Joshua Blank, Daron Shaw, and James Henson – look at results the much-noted decline in President Trump's job approval numbers in their June poll, and how Trump's standing intersects attitudes on the economy and immigration, as well as what can be read into the current positions of Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton in anticipation of Paxton's challenge to Cornyn in the 2026 GOP primary.
Read more...In a meeting of the Texas Politics Project poll team, Daron Shaw and Joshua Blank talk with James Henson about results in the April 2025 University of Texas / Texas Politics Project Poll.
Read more...James Henson talks with Harvey Kronberg, publisher and of Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report, about the vibes in the legislature as well as the longer trajectory of politics in the state, and the place of Quorum Report in the Texas media universe.
Read more...James Henson and Joshua Blank look at Texas public opinion on tariffs and the economy, and how economic upheaval might upend core assumptions about the state budget for the next biennium.
Read more...However much (and how) Texas voters’ attitudes about tariffs are likely to be shaped by their direct experience of the effects, and by partisan attempts to shape those views, the widespread concern they express about prices is likely to continue to dominate their economic views.
Read more...Amidst all the arguments about the second Trump administration’s economic and trade policies and their consequences, Texas voters remain deeply concerned about the prices they are paying for most anything that matters.
Read more...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.
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