1. Latest Polling: October 20-27, 2009.
Perry ahead in Republican Primary as Texans remain focused on economy and on different page than Washington
The results of the first UT/Texas Tribune poll shows Texans remaining negative about the economy, slowly turning their attention to the 2010 elections, and largely skeptical about the direction of the federal government. The survey was in the field from October 20-27 and sampled 800 Texans who identified themselves as registered voters, producing a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percentage points.
Republicans appear to be getting more engaged with the marquee primary race for governor between Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry leads by 12 points (42-30), just outside the 5.14 point margin of error for the Republican Primary voter sub-sample. More significant than the gap between the candidates, which has swung back and forth over the past nine months, is the drop in the number of undecided voters. At 18%, the percentage of those who have yet to make up their minds has dropped ten points since our June survey. Debra Medina, seeking to carry the mantle of the Tea Party-ers, runs a distant third with 7%.
The Democratic race continues to be marked by a lack of engagement and enthusiasm for the top contests. More than half of those planning on voting in the Democratic primary (55%) haven't settled on a choice. Kinky Friedman's first-place finish with 18% probably testifies to his name recognition, while Tom Schieffer garners 10% of the vote.
Senator Hutchison's continued occupancy of her Senate seat, without any assured exit plan, means that the potential race to replace her has yet to draw voters' attention -- or at least their commitment to any of the prospective candidates. As in our June survey, the number of undecided voters is still large. Houston Mayor Bill White appears to have made some head-way -- he trailed John Sharp and David Dewhurst in June, and now runs neck and neck with Dewhurst at 13% (Sharp garners 10% this time around). All three are well within the margin of error here, and nobody is really making the needle jump. The other candidates all remain in low single figures. The small number of observations in the results for each candidate doesn't allow us to make reliable candidate comparisons, but the results tentatively suggest that White is doing better with weak and leaning Democrats and independents, while Sharp and White are splitting the strong Democrats.
In a series of hypothetical match-ups against prominent Democratic candidates, Hutchison runs stronger than Perry across the board: nine points stronger against Tom Schieffer, five points stronger against Kinky Friedman, and seven points stronger against Ronnie Earle. Both Republican candidates, however, register double-figure advantages in all of these hypothetical head to heads.
When Senator Hutchison and Governor Perry were matched with an unnamed "Democratic nominee," Senator Hutchison topped a generic Democrat by 11 points (36-25), while Governor Perry edged the unnamed Democrat by only 1 point. Respondents probably wish to keep an open mind at this point, and in all of these hypothetical races more than a third of the respondents either didn't know or opted for an unknown third party candidate.
In questions asking about vote choice in Congressional and state legislative elections, Republicans enjoyed a nine-point advantage in the Congressional match up, but only a six-point lead in state legislative races. That this passes for good news is commentary on the tough sledding for Democrats, although it does reinforce the continuing improvement in their legislative race competitiveness seen over the past two cycles.
This was the first in a series of polls to be undertaken in collaboration with The Texas Tribune. For additional analysis and commentary, see their "Polling Center" section.
2. Mood of the State (October 2009)
A statewide survey of 800 adults conducted October 21-27, 2009 found Texans still negative about the national economy and their personal economic situation, yet showing signs of interests in the most contested of the 2010 race. The majority sentiment is one of skepticism about the direction of national politics, with a significant hardened faction of that majority expressing intense opposition to national policy and national political leadership.
The mood in the state remained generally negative in the survey, as has been the trend for the last year. At a broad level, 59% of those surveyed said the US was on the wrong track in response to the standard "right direction/wrong track" item. Fifty-nine percent said the US economy is worse off than a year ago, and 43 percent said they were personally worse off than a year ago. The negative assessment of the country has eased some since our June survey, when 69 percent said the country was worse off. The "better off" assessments edged up from only 11% in June to 24% in October. But the most intensely negative response offered was the most frequent one we received, with 36 percent of the negative assessments rating the economy "a lot worse off." Personal economic assessments were virtually unchanged between June and October.
As suggested above, intensely negative assessments, particularly when respondents were asked to respond to national matters and elected officials, recurred throughout the survey. President Obama's ratings differed little from his performance in the general election, with 41 approving and 52 disapproving of his overall job performance. The US Congress job approval rating from Texans was dismal, with 71% disapproving and only 13% approving. In both of these assessments the most negative option, "disapprove strongly", was the most common choice: 44% strongly disapproved of Obama, and 49% strongly disapproved of Congress.
At the state level, where we solicited approval ratings of Governor Perry, Senator Hutchison, and the Texas state legislature, assessments were less negative though hardly stellar. Governor Perry's approval numbers were at 36% approve (10% strongly/26% somewhat) versus 44 percent disapprove (26% strongly / 18% somewhat). Senator Hutchison elicited comparable positives with a 39% approval rating (10% strongly / 29% somewhat), but her disapproval rating was only 27% (10% strongly/17% somewhat) with a larger share choosing the neutral option (24%) than in the Governor's case (15%). The Texas state legislature fared much better than their counterparts in Washington DC: 31% approved of the way the Texas Legislature has been handling its job (3% strongly/28% somewhat). It's a testament to how poorly the US Congress is viewed that they would probably be happy to have the 36% negative rating the Texas Legislature earned (15% strongly disapproving/21% somewhat disapproving).
The negative assessments of both the economic environment and political leadership were likely influenced by Texans' focus on economic problems. When asked to identify the most important problems facing the country, 38% chose the economy and unemployment, with 15% citing federal spending and the national debt, another 15% choosing political corruption/leadership, and 13% choosing health care. No other issue registered in double digits. When asked to identify the most important state problems, the economy and employment top the list at 28% if combined, with immigration following at 19% and border security at 13%. (The last two were considered separately due to the prevalence of predominantly drug trafficking crime in some areas of the Texas border.)
With the economy at the top of Texans' list of most important problems facing both the nation and the state, but with widespread disapproval of political executives and Congress much in evidence, we asked respondents about whether national and state governments were helping on the economic front. When asked if the federal government was "helping to bring the economy out of recession, making it harder for the economy to recover from recession, or not doing much either way," 28% thought the federal government was helping, 43% thought the federal government was making it harder, and 23% thought federal efforts were a wash. So two-thirds either think the federal government is hurting or irrelevant.
Interestingly enough, respondents seemed to either recognize the comparatively reduced role of state government in Texas (or perhaps just rated it less effective), but in either case, 43% thought state government wasn't having much impact, 23% thought the state was helping, and only 17% thought state government was making recovery harder.
Health care is the most prominent issue on the Congressional agenda right now, so we also elicited approval ratings related to the handling of health care by the president and the parties in Congress. These results were also negative, and (once again) intensely so. When asked whether they approved or disapproved of "the way President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are handling the issue of health care," 58% disapproved (with 49% disapproving strongly) and 37% approved (with 13% approving strongly). Asked about how "Republicans in Congress" are handling the issue, 54% disapproved, with only 33% approving and 12% saying they didn't know. In short, no one inside the Beltway is viewed with much affection by registered voters in the Lone Star state.
2.1 Trends
Retrospective Assessments of the National Economy
Texans' views on the state of the national economy are improving slowly and gradually, as the longitudinal chart comparing assessments as of October 2009 to previous assessments shows. 59% of respondents answered that the national economy is worse off than it was a year ago, as opposed to 71% in June 2009 and 81% in February 2009. Conversely, 24% of respondents answered that the national economy is better off than it was a year ago, as opposed to 11% in June 2009 and 6% in February 2009.
Retrospective Assessments of Personal Economic Situations
No such clear trend can be discerned from respondents with respect to their personal economic situations. Much like in previous polls, large and statistically equal percentages of respondents say they and their families are either economically worse off or about the same as they were one year ago, while a significantly smaller percentage of respondents say they and their families are better off than they were one year ago.
2.2 Previous poll results
