| This afternoon the 2010 Texas Lyceum Poll was released. I've embedded the full Lyceum release below the fold and made it available for viewing here. It follows a less thorough WFAA/Belo poll released yesterday showing a Perry-50, White-36 race.
Below are the main numbers of interest from the Lyceum Poll.
General Information: From September 22-30, 725 adult Texans responded to a statewide telephone survey asking about their attitudes towards the current political and economic environment, the 2010 elections, and issues likely to come up in the 2011 Texas state legislative session. Since all numbers reported herein pertain to the upcoming November elections, they are based on a sample of 416 likely voters, with a margin of error of +/- 4.75 percentage points.
Governor
48% Rick Perry (R)
42% Bill White (D)
05% Kathie Glass (L)
01% Deb Shafto (G)
03% Undecided
Lt. Governor
47% David Dewhurst (R)
30% Linda Chavez-Thompson (D)
07% Scott Jameson (L)
04% Herb Gonzalez (G)
12% Undecided
Attorney General
56% Greg Abbott (R)
29% Barbara Radnofsky (D)
04% Jon Roland (L)
11% Undecided
Generic Congressional Ballot
41% Republican candidate
29% Democratic candidate
Generic State House Ballot
38% Republican candidate
31% Democratic candidate
My thoughts-
Besides the incredibly small number of undecided numbers in the Governor's race, but even in the two other statewide races polled, the most interesting number here the 47% that Dewhurst received. In a race with almost no media or attention, Dewhurst is polling below Rick Perry and a full 9 points below Greg Abbott. Not only that, but 11% of the vote is choosing third-party candidates compared to 6% in the Governor's race and 4% in the Attorney General race. The 7% for Libertarian Scott Jameson and 4% for Green Herb Gonzalez is surprising- if I had to explain it, I'd argue that in general 3-party support is higher in downballot races (a fact born out in past Texas elections) and the rest may be due to the Green Party candidate being Hispanic.
Dewhurst has never been particularly popular, having slipped into his current office in 2002 by the narrowest margin of any statewide official. But if this poll is right, it has me wishing that Linda Chavez-Thompson had those millions of dollars to fund the base GOTV operation she's advocated for her entire campaign- a missed opportunity for sure. The silver lining here is that if Dewhurst wants to run for US Senate or Governor down the line we know he's got a weak spot which we should exploit.
As to the Governor's race, closer is aways better and some of the internal fundamentals noted by the poll analysis (posted below) are very good for Bill White. But White is still only at 43% and even if he got all of the undecideds and the Green vote he's short of Perry.
From the poll analysis...
Amongst self-identified independent voters, Bill White has a 16-point advantage (White 50%, Perry 34%) with Glass also garnering a not-insignificant 10% of the independent vote. Moderates also support White over Perry (White 67%, Perry 22%). Perry dominates among Republicans and conservatives, however, and it is this support that fuels his overall edge.
Down ballot, Dewhurst leads Chavez-Thompson among independents (Dewhurst 35%, Chavez-Thompson 21%), but trails among moderates (Dewhurst 34%, Chavez-Thompson 42%). Abbott leads amongst both independents and moderates, but overwhelmingly among independents (Abbott 45%, Radnofsky 14%) and only slightly among moderates (Abbott 43%, Radnofsky 37%). Independents favor the Republican Party in the Congressional election (Republican Candidate 32%, Democratic Candidate 25%), but moderates favor the Democratic party candidate by 10-points (Democratic candidate 39%, Republican Candidate 29%). As for the State House election, Democrats lead amongst both independents and moderates, by 13-points in the case of independents (Democratic Candidate 24%, Republican Candidate 11%) and 18-points in the case of moderates (Democratic Candidate 39%, Republican Candidate 21%). |
