A different poll result from what we had been seeing.
A poll affiliated with the Democratic Policy Institute has Beto O’Rourke tailing Gov. Greg Abbott by 3 points in the race for Texas governor, a margin narrower than other recent polls.
The poll was released Sunday, ahead of Monday’s start of early voting. Beacon Research surveyed 1,264 registered Texas voters between Oct. 15 and 19 for the nonprofit, which describes itself as developing “common sense policies that meet the needs and desires of the majority of our citizens.” The organization’s principal officer is Najy A. Metni, according to IRS documents — an O’Rourke donor. Metni has donated $50,000 to O’Rourke this election cycle, campaign finance and other public records show. Abbott’s 3 point lead — 48% to O’Rourke’s 45% — is subject to a 2.8% margin of error.
“Simply put, as voters begin heading to the polls this week, the Texas Governor’s race is anybody’s ballgame,” the institute said in a statement.
The poll puts the candidates in a closer race than other polls released in the past several weeks, including one by the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin released Friday that had Abbott with a widened lead over his Democratic opponent. The October poll had Abbott ahead by 11 percentage points compared to five points in a poll released in September.
The poll data is here, though it doesn’t contain crosstabs. I was going to cite the recent Marist poll as a second closer result for Beto in October, but that four-point spread was for registered voters, with no screen applied. They reported a 52-44 Abbott lead among “definite” voters, but for whatever the reason didn’t include a number for those who called themselves “likely”. I continue to be puzzled by and skeptical of the distinctions between the “Likely” and “Extra Super Duper Likely With A Cherry On Top” voters. For what it’s worth, in this particular poll, they gave numbers for all voters (Abbott 48-45), “Definite” voters (Abbott 48-46), and “Less Likely” voters (Abbott 43-34). Maybe they just have a different “Likely Voter” screen than others do, or maybe they’re seeing something different. It’s hard to put a lot of faith in a single stand-out result, so make of this what you will.
One other poll came out this week, from Siena College, which has Abbott up 52-43 among “Likely” voters. They had him up by a 50-43 margin, also among “Likely” voters, in September.
35 days and counting………….