IVR Polls has been running a weekly tracking poll on economic sentiment in Texas since June. Four questions ask respondents about unemployment, inflation, job security and whether they are better off now than last year. To summarize those results, pessimism has been rising with the Wall Street drama, but Texans have been more optimistic than when they were facing $4 gas. Polling last night (Oct 6), following a large drop in the market despite the bailout/rescue package, indicates that Texans have finally matched those previous levels of pessimism. Throughout the period, oil producing areas have been happier than the rest of the state, while DFW and South Texas have been relatively gloomy.
For the 10/6 poll, I added a question on the presidential race. This was the last question, so it should not influence the prior responses. I surveyed a double sample to get greater detail for this question, though results will be weighted at normal levels in the rolling average. Weighting was done to match the general population, not typical turnout or even registered voters, so this is in no way a prediction of the election, just an extra layer from the economic perspective. When reweighted to the general population levels, McCain leads Obama 46% to 42%. Historical turnout patterns would suggest a wider margin.
There is a decided difference between how McCain supporters view the economy and how Obama supporters view it. Of the respondents who said they were better off than a year ago, 67% are voting for McCain, and only 23% for Obama. Of the ones who said they were worse off, 51% support Obama and 24% support McCain.
Of those that have someone in the household worried about losing their job, 59% support Obama compared to 22% for McCain. Of those that have no such worries, McCain leads 52% to 31%. McCain carries those that think their income will outpace inflation, 51% to 33%, while those that think they will lag inflation support Obama by a 45% to 33% margin.
Finally, those that think unemployment is going down support McCain 63% to 21%. Those that think unemployment is going up support Obama 47% to 33%.
Latest numbers show a pessimistic turn over the last week. Not only are the new weekly numbers among the lowest since June, the rolling average drops one of the most optimistic weeks, with polling done just before Ike. The weekly change in the spread between optimistic and pessimistic responses shifted 10 points downward on the inflation and unemployment questions, 16 points on the 'better off' question and 25 points on the job security question. The rolling average change is less pronounced, but still represents the largest one week change in the data series.
Question wording and 10/6 results in the extended.
The Eric Roberson campaign commissioned a poll of CD32. As with earlier polls of CD7 and CD10, the population sampled was prior voters, and results were weighted to match historical turnout. These polls are designed to be apples-to-apples comparisons with earlier elections, looking at how much the district has shifted rather than projecting new turnout patterns. As with the other Congressional polls, I first asked about McCain v Obama, then Cornyn v Noriega and then the Congressional matchup. While there was minor variation in the responses, margins were identical in all three races.
581 likely voters polled 6/4/2008, margin of error 4.1%
Sessions (R) 52%
Roberson (D) 43%
Third party/no vote 3%
Undecided 1%
Excluding third party/no vote
Sessions (R) 54%
Roberson (D) 45%
Undecided 1%
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Other recent Texas polls for comparison
CD10, June 2 - McCaul 52% - Doherty 46%
CD7, April 8 - Culberson 57% - Skelly 39%
I find a nine point lead for Pete Sessions and the other Republicans, down from a fifteen point margin in the 2006 election. Three percent said they would vote third party or not vote, in line with the 2.3% that a Libertarian candidate received in 2006. Only one percent said they were undecided in the Congressional race, while the Presidential and Senate races had about 4% undecided.
Questions were posed in this format:
In the 32nd District Congressional race, the candidates are Republican Pete Sessions and Democrat Eric Roberson
If you would vote for Republican Pete Sessions, press 1
If you would vote for Democrat Eric Roberson, press 2
If you would vote for another candidate, or if you would not vote, press 3
If you are undecided, press 4
The order of candidate names and choices is randomized. As of last week, I have changed my format to add the Libertarian candidate's name, but this poll was conducted prior to that change.
Additional questions requested by the Roberson campaign were asked after the three matchup questions so that there would be no bias. Sessions was viewed favorably by 37% and unfavorably by 39%, with the remainder neutral. Roberson's name recognition was low, even among those who supported him. Top issue was the Economy, followed by the War.
Illegal Immigration, Change and Healthcare also received support at lower levels.
On 6/3, I polled 489 likely voters in District 52. The results mirror the 2006 election numbers, with the Republican Bryan Daniel leading Democrat Diana Maldonado by 6.3 points. The 2006 election was a 6.2 point victory for the Republican Mike Krusee. The Libertarian candidate pulled 5.3% in that election, and while I did not specifically name the Libertarian candidate this time, 7% chose the 'vote third party or not vote' option which is higher than I typically see and higher than the same option got in the presidential and senate matchups from the same poll. If the option is interpreted as 'not vote' rather than 'vote third party', the margin increases to 6.8 points. Probably somewhere in the middle.
489 likely voters polled 6/3/2008, margin of error 4.4%
Daniel 48.0% Maldonado 41.7% Third part/not vote 6.9% Undecided 2.9%
(More good news for Democrats in Texas - promoted by Matt Glazer)
In 2004, George Bush took 62% of the vote in Texas' 10th Congressional District. In 2006, Michael McCaul was held to 55% by a poorly funded Democrat and a relatively well funded Libertarian. My own polling a week before the election found 7% undecided, but the challengers had no funds to close the deal and undecided stayed with the incumbent. As a disclaimer, and an illustration of the funding issue, I did $90 in robocalls for the challenger, Ted Ankrum, in the closing days.
For the 2008 race, in polling on June 2, 528 likely voters gave McCaul a 5.4% lead over Democratic challenger Larry Joe Doherty. McCaul received 51.7% to Doherty's 46.3%, with 2.0% undecided.
TX-10 is described as a 'barbell district' due to having a large chunk of the district in Travis County (Austin), a large chunk in Harris County (Houston) and a thin strip of highway frontage in between. In 2006, Harris went 71-26 for McCaul and Travis went 56-38 for Ankrum. In this poll, McCaul takes Harris 63-33 and Doherty takes Travis by the same 63-33. Travis is the slightly larger end of the TX-10 barbell, but the 'bar' in between went 70-30 for McCaul, resulting in a McCaul lead.
Of note, I also polled Obama-McCain and Cornyn-Noriega in this district and found those races to be more favorable to the other Republicans than they are to McCaul. Cornyn leads Noriega 54-44 and McCain leads Obama 55-41. Statewide, my past results have been more in line with Baselice than SurveyUSA or Rasmussen on these races, but I do not have current statewide numbers to report.
Historically, turnout in this district doesn't include large numbers of Latinos or African-Americans. In this poll, both groups went with Doherty, Latinos by 2-1 and African-Americans by 7-1. If Obama at the top of the ticket increases African-American general election turnout as he has in the primary, and these additional voters follow through on the down-ballot races, Doherty could close the gap even further. Increased Latino turnout in the primary was mainly a reflection of Clinton's popularity, but there is a possibility that Noriega could also increase Latino turnout for the general, further benefitting Doherty.
There is no significant gender gap in these results, but age is a factor. Voters under 40 go with the Democrat in each race. Voters from 40-59 go with the Republican by small margins. Voters over 60 go Republican in all cases, but margin is much larger in races for President and Senator.
528 likely voters polled 6/2/2008, margin of error 4.3%
Revised my model to reflect increased turnout and new voters. Clinton's swing through South Texas firmed up her support there while Obama has made gains in urban areas. Things are unchanged in most of the rest of the state. Bottom line, their campaigning gains offset, while the changed model gives Obama a boost from (-10) to (-5).
Since I do registration based polling, I can tie the responses back to the state senate districts and predict delegates. Tiny samples, large room for error, but the errors probably balance out to some extent.
Obama cleans up in the big delegate districts, but Clinton breaks 62.5% in a lot of four delegate districts, giving her 3-1 splits. Add them all up and she gets 8 more than he does. Not the windfall she needs, but not a loss as some called based on the way the big delegate districts go. Voters who say they will attend the precinct conventions show a similar pattern - stacked deep for Obama in the big delegate districts while Clinton has better coverage in the outlying areas.
Early voting goes 60-40 for Clinton in raw numbers, not weighted by age/ethnicity/gender. Obama leads in Harris, Tarrant, Travis. Clinton leads in Bexar, Dallas, El Paso and lots of smaller counties.
Here's where the votes are coming from, though be aware that many indicated that they would vote against the same candidate in the general that they planned to vote for in the primary.
(Yet another great post from the journals. Obama and Romney both make a big move. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
With Edwards and Giuliani dropping out, I decided to poll the race in Texas before Super Tuesday next week.
November and December polls both gave Hillary Clinton a hefty 51% to 17% lead over Barack Obama, but that has changed considerably over the last two polls. Current results give her just a ten point lead over her main rival, 48% to 38%. Mike Gravel received 3% while 12% were undecided. Much of Obama's increase has come from his increase in support among Latinos. In December, Clinton had a 70 to 7 lead in this group. The January 10 poll was 63-18. In this poll, the margin was down to 60-29. That is still a wide margin, but 2-1 is a lot different from 10-1. Edwards was at 5% among Latinos in the January 10 poll, so Obama's gain cannot be completely explained by his departure. There is a significant gender gap as Latinos men under 60 were more likely to support Obama while Latinas under 60 gave Clinton large margins. Clinton easily led both sides of the 60+ group.
Among Republicans, Mitt Romney has gained the most from the narrowing field. While he has stayed in the low to mid teens since summer, conservative Thompson and Giuliani voters have picked Romney over John McCain, raising his support to 30%, a hair ahead of the Arizona Senator's 29%. Mike Huckabee follows with 20%, down for the second poll in a row. Ron Paul has his best showing at 8%, up from 4% last month. Alan Keyes, who has decided to base his campaign in Texas until March, follows with 3%. 10% are undecided.
NOTE: If you are looking for the most recent Clinton vs. Obama Texas Primary Poll, please click here.
Obama has his biggest gain, from 17% to 28% while Clinton slips from 51% to 46%. They are tied among voters under 40, and the largest chunk of the movement seems to be among Latino men. Edwards basically unchanged, down a point from 15% to 14%.
I also ran the Senate primary but left Rhett Smith off the list, so I won't release those numbers. Quick summary - about half admit to being undecided, but enough support for the second tier candidates that a runoff would be likely if the primary was yesterday.
On the GOP side, Huckabee (26%) holds off a surge by McCain, who jumps from 7% to 24%. Huckabee lost some of the moderate voters who liked the first impression, but firmed up support among more conservative voters, especially those under 40.
NOTE: If you are looking for the most recent Clinton vs. Obama Texas Primary Poll, please go to this post.
Latest primary polls done the past couple of days show almost no movement in the Democratic primary but big changes in the GOP version.
Dems Last month Clinton 51%, Obama 17%, Edwards 11%, Richardson 10%
This month Clinton 51%, Obama 17%, Edwards 15%, Richardson 8%
All candidates polled, but no one else got >1%
GOP Last month Giuliani 23%, Huckabee 16%, Thompson 16%, Romney 12%
This month Huckabee 29%, Giuliani 16%, Thompson 14%, Romney 14%
All candidates polled, but no one else got >7%
My usual technique for the Texas presidential primary polls is to compose my sample of voters with a history of voting in primaries, and then limiting the responses to those who say they will vote in the party's primary that they have previously voted in. It's a tight screen to reflect low turnout. The general election will see five times the number of voters as both primaries combined.
As we get to the point that more voters are tuning in, I decided to do a comparison poll of the population that does not vote in primaries, but does vote in the general elction. In the last presidential election, 7.4 million Texans voted, compared to about 840 thousand in the Democratic primary and 690 thousand in the GOP primary. One might expect the GOP to have a larger primary turnout than the Democrats since they have dominated recent general elections, but that's not the case. Only 15% of Bush voters had voted in the primary while 30% of Kerry voters had. This means that this non-primary voting population is tilted heavily in favor of Bush voters since they are a larger percentage of a larger number. Sixty-five percent of this population voted for Bush and only thirty-five percent voted for Kerry.
The line of questioning was slightly different than the primary polls. Rather than ask which party and then listing that party's candidates, I asked if the respondent had a favorite candidate, then which party that candidate belonged to and finally listed that party's candidates. I did this to focus on candidate appeal rather than party allegiance. After the candidate questions, I asked the same issue questions that were in the primary polls. General election voters, being less interested in politics, were less likely to take the poll, so I only got 375 responses, despite making 50% more calls than I usually do for the primary polls. Margin of error is larger, especially after splitting the sample three ways into both parties and 'no favorite'.
Of the respondents with a favorite, the Democrats did better than the 2004 number would indicate. Rather than a 65/35% split, Republicans only led 55/45%. It's likely that the fluctuating GOP race caused a few GOP voters to be undecided rather than picking a favorite, so that may skew the numbers a bit. However, when the numbers are broken down by gender, a clear split is observed. Men vote Republican 60/40%, not far from expected, but women vote almost exactly 50/50%. There has been speculation that Clinton may be attracting Republican women, though I can't confirm that from this data. Clinton received 33% of all women's support while the GOP frontrunner Giuliani received only 16%, followed by Obama at 12% and Romney at 10%. Among men, Giuliani received 23% to Clinton's 19%, Obama's 12% and Romney's 11%. It shound be noted that both Clinton and Giuliani do better among women within their respective party primary voters. Thompson and Huckabee trail McCain among both sexes.
Ron Paul supporters have suggested that he is attracting Democratic crossover voters, but there is no evidence in these results. He received 3% of the total vote. Among only those who picked a GOP candidate as their favorite, his percentage is almost identical to his support among GOP primary voters.
Issue comparisons between these three polls after the break.
(More interesting polling info. - promoted by Matt Glazer)
The two main trends cross this month as Thompson drops three and Huckabee rises two to tie at 16% for second place. Romney also drops a couple of points and McCain regains three, while Giuliani maintains a clear lead despite dropping a point to 23%. Tancredo drops four to 3%, though the previous sample may have been at the upper limit of the margin of error. Technically, all candidate movement is within the 4.3% margin of error of last month.
