It’s interesting to look at the cross tabs of the HD-11 poll. The cross tabulations break the big numbers down into subgroups and illustrate why the race is going the way it is. Perry is on top because he is holding two thirds of self-identified Republican voters. Normally that would spell disaster for an incumbent Governor, but not when he has three opponents splitting up the antis. Strayhorn’s problem is that she has to pull votes from both left and right, which is self limiting. In HD-11 she’s getting less than 16% of Democrats, 24% of Independents, and 12% of Republicans. That’s not nearly enough. She needs half the Democrats and closer to a quarter of Republicans.
Chris Bell is only getting 47% of self-identified Democrats. That’s bad news and good news. He’s way lower than he should be among his own base, but he has huge room to grow. Some of his problem is simply low name ID. Some of it is due to the heretofore somnolent tone of his message. Kinky mainly hurts Bell. Kinky is drawing 12% of the Democrats in HD-11, and he probably will do better in urban locales like Austin and Houston. He hurts Bell among progressives and younger Whites. Bell has to demystify Kinky or find a way to go his left. (Personally I would recommend going sharply populist while generating headlines by bashing George Bush. Too risky? Remember, this is a race you can win with less than 40%.)
Who are the undecided in this race? In HD-11 36% of them are Republicans, 25% Democrats, and a third are independents. It’s a consultant’s rule of thumb that most undecideds will go against the incumbent. Presumably undecided Republicans will be more inclined to go to Strayhorn. The problem is she has to win ALL of the undecided—of every persuasion-- to rise to the mid-thirties… and that would be a most unlikely coalition. Strayhorn is currently spending a lot of money hiring the services of Black and Hispanic field operatives in Democratic districts throughout Texas. They will take her money, but I question whether they will win her enough votes.
I have argued all year that Strayhorn’s candidacy actually creates a bigger opportunity for the Democrats than for herself. So far Chris Bell has not made my prediction look very brilliant. I still honestly believe he has far more potential to move. With modest TV money, and maybe even without it, he should be able to claim most of the Democrats who are still undecided. That gets him into the mid twenties. After that it gets harder. He has to win over Democrats currently in Strayhorn or Kinky’s camp. The good news is that most of them are where they are by default. They are not lifelong Strayhorners or Kinkyites. Still, winning them will take more money and a much tougher, edgier, more populist campaign than Bell has waged so far. Bell can win only by creating excitement, and he can create excitement only by taking risks. If he ever generates a few headlines like “Bell Climbs in Polls,” his momentum—and publicity---will begin to feed on itself.
The Democratic statewide base vote in Texas is about 38%. Perry’s own ineptitude has bled the Governor’s poll numbers down into that range. Perry probably will not drop lower. His core is with him to stay. Strayhorn is currently way below where she needs to be at this stage. She cannot leap all the way up to 40% without running the table. She has to tear Perry a new one to get close enough to win. In addition, she has to assemble an ungainly coalition of one fourth of the Republicans and almost half of the Democrats. If Strayhorn attacks Perry, and I think she has to, or if she begins to move for any reason, Perry goes to DefCon Six and launches his own nuclear strike. There is a high probability of a TV War of Mutual Assured Destruction this fall.
Perry and Strayhorn in a fiery death spiral is a pleasant prospect. It is also the scenario most beneficial to Bell. While the bombs fall, he can reassemble the Democratic coalition, attract some disillusioned Independents, and sneak up on the outside. At some point, however, he has to separate himself from Kinky. Bell cannot allow Kinky to siphon off 10 or 15% of the anti-Perry vote. (Kinky’s a fun guy, but he doesn’t deserve Democratic votes. If you google the Kinky One for a few minutes, you’ll come across a picture of him and Bush, arm in arm--big buddies. He was an overnight guest at the White House and a supporter of the Invasion of Iraq.)
Bell’s chances hinge on a lot of big Ifs. Bell himself may be constitutionally incapable of the kind of magnetism and risk taking required to beat the odds. Still, if I were a skillionaire trial lawyer, like the ones who donated millions to Strayhorn, I would think about hedging my bet by throwing a few dollars to Chris Bell. Like I said at the start, the odds really favor Perry, but there’s a chance.
