Blog
Second Reading Podcast: A conversation about trends in Latino voting and media narratives around them
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank take a close look Latino voting patterns in Texas – and what common media narratives miss about the subject.
Polling shows why looming winter weather triggers Texans' anxieties about the grid, and their doubts about political leaders' response
As the first serious winter storm descends on their state, Texans’ pervasive anxiety about the reliability of the state’s go-it-alone power grid has floated to the surface of public discussion like a North Atlantic iceberg. Weather forecasters and energy mavens assure us that the weather hitting a large swath of the state lacks the severity, duration, or geographic impact of the February 2021 disaster that left hundreds dead, millions of Texas without power in sub-freezing temperatures, and caused billions in damage. Polling we conducted both shortly after the 2021 outages and in the intervening months suggest that the seemingly widespread anxiety about the return of cold weather reflects the pervasive impact of the last storm, as well as a lack of confidence in the state leadership’s measures to ensure the reliability of the grid in the wake of last year’s failures.
Second Reading Podcast: A conversation about the 2022 Texas primaries with Harvey Kronberg of Quorum Report
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson talks with Harvey Kronberg about races and issues in the 2022 Texasprimary elections.
Second Reading Podcast: A conversation about the 2022 Texas primaries with Gromer Jeffers, Jr., of the Dallas Morning News
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson talks with Gromer Jeffers, Jr., longtime political writer for the Dallas Morning News, about the 2022 primary race, with lots of talk about the GOP primary for Attorney General and races in the North Texas region.
Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas House Districts
As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.
Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas Senate Districts
As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.
Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas Congressional Districts
As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive congressional races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.
Polling suggests Texas GOP-led election reform didn’t increase overall trust in state election results
Public opinion polling in the aftermath of the election, and after a legislative session blown up by the intensive debate over GOP-sponsored election legislation, shows that trust in Texas’ official election results were not strengthened by the legislation pushed with deep determination by Republican legislators and signed with great fanfare by Governor Greg Abbott. In fact, both Democrats and Republicans showed a slight decrease in the intensity with which they believe in the validity of Texas elections. Only among independents – a generally less attentive and political engaged group – did belief in the accuracy of state elections increase.
A Rush for the Exits? Contextualizing Turnover in the Texas Legislature
It’s natural to look for patterns in legislators' decisions to not seek re-election to the offices they hold, especially retirements, and to view each as yet another factor in handicapping upcoming primary and general elections. This intuition finds some support in evidence that congressional retirements appear responsive to short-term electoral forces. Expectations that Democrats will face a tough election cycle this coming Fall with a Democrat in the White House and the majority of electoral maps constructed by Republican legislatures certainly inform the conventional wisdom as we prepare to ring in 2022.
But how well does this apply to the current slate of retirements and expected electoral turnover in the Texas Legislature?
Negative Partisanship in Texas Stifles Potential Crossover Voting in 2022
While there are other conceivable mobilization scenarios in which the policy output of 2021 might endanger GOP incumbents in 2022, public opinion polling in Texas strongly suggest that unpopular policy, even extremely unpopular policy, whether coming from the left or the right, is unlikely to spur many partisans to vote for a candidate of the opposing party.