UT-Tyler/DMN: Trump 43, Biden 43

New day, new poll.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in a dead heat in the race for Texas, signaling that the Lone Star State is evolving into a presidential battleground.

A new Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll shows that Trump and Biden are backed by 43% of poll respondents, with 5% opting for “other” candidates and only 9% undecided. Trump’s overall approval rating was 45%.

A February survey had Trump with a one-point lead over Biden, with 11% choosing neither.

The poll of 1,183 registered voters was conducted April 18-27 with a margin of error of +/- 2.85 percentage points. The survey asked additional questions of 447 registered voters who indicated they voted in the Democratic primary, with a margin of error of +/- 4.64%.

[…]

The poll also revealed that the coronavirus pandemic has had a pronounced impact on Texas politics, with state and local leaders trusted more than President Trump. The president’s handling of the crisis is approved by 43% of respondents, while 44% disapproved. Respondents were evenly split — 45% to 45% — on whether they trusted Trump to keep them safe.

Meanwhile, the fight over the coronavirus is obscuring the U.S. Senate race. In the Democratic primary, Air Force combat veteran MJ Hegar of Round Rock has a 32% to 16% lead over state Sen. Royce West of Dallas. But just as in other surveys, there’s a large group of undecided voters.

Incumbent Republican John Cornyn leads both Democrats by double digits in head-to-head matchups.

Elsewhere, poll respondents favored Democrats over Republicans in the rumble for the Texas House, a body the GOP has controlled since 2003.

And for the upcoming runoff elections, most voters feel comfortable voting at polling places, but the majority of respondents also favored having the option to vote by mail.

There were actually two UT-Tyler polls published in February, one of which was conducted in late January and one of which was just before the primary (scroll down, it’s the third poll cited). They publish registered voter and likely voter samples for each poll, which can make the reporting on them, especially comparison reporting, a bit tricky.

As is usually the case, the DMN story is out ahead of the poll data being published on the UT-Tyler Center for Opinion Research page, so there’s only so much I can tell you that isn’t in the article. The numbers for both Biden and Trump are down a bit from those earlier polls, which may just be a fluke of the sample or may indicate a higher level of uncertainty at this weird time. I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about it – it’s just one result, as we like to say – but it’s worth noting in case we see more like it.

The primary runoff poll between MJ Hegar and Royce West is also the first we’ve seen so far, as is this:

For the general election, Republican Cornyn leads Hegar and West by similar margins. The longtime incumbent is ahead of Hegar 37% to 24% and West 35% to 24%. For both head-to-head matchups, 34% of voters were undecided.

[…]

Perhaps the most competitive contests on November’s general election ballot will be for the Texas House. Republicans hold a nine-seat majority, which Democrats hope to topple.

As it did in February, the survey found that most respondents slighted trusted Democrats over Republicans to lead the House.

Those are large undecided numbers in the Senate race, and the lack of support for either Hegar or West is reflected in the fact that even most Democrats had no opinion. (The full poll data is not available as of this writing, but there were a few tables in the DMN article, including one for this race.) I believe Cornyn is leading this race, and I believe he may outperform Trump in November, but if Biden is even with or leading Trump, and if the generic State House ballot leans Dem, that’s going to be a problem for him.

One more thing:

Eighty-five percent of those polled intended to vote in the runoff election. The poll found that 51% of Texans were comfortable with voting in person, while 33% were uncomfortable.

Only 17% wanted to vote in person on Election Day, and 35% didn’t mind voting in person at an early voting location.

The majority of those polled (37%) preferred to vote by mail. Most Texans, even those who wanted to vote in person, support an expansion of vote-by-mail in Texas.

The current law states that only residents over 65, voters who are ill, out of town or in prison can vote with an absentee or mail ballot.

The poll found that 58% of Texans would allow residents to vote by mail without giving an excuse, and 50% would allow the activity for all elections. On that question, 22% opposed mail-in ballot expansion and 20% were neutral. Of those opposed to expanding mail-in voting, 95% were worried about election fraud.

The partisan breakdown given for the question “Do you support Texas revising its election laws to allow any registered voter to mail in a ballot without an excuse?” was Dem 76% support, 5% oppose, Independent 57% support, 18% oppose, Republican 42% support, 41% oppose. (Note that the options included “Strongly Support”, “Support”, “Neutral”, “Oppose”, and “Strongly Oppose” – I combined the two “support” and “oppose” responses in my numbers.) I expect that whatever the actual level of Republican support is for these things, the Republican politicians who are fiercely opposing any expansion of vote by mail will not suffer for it. The rank and file will ultimately follow their leaders on this.

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One Response to UT-Tyler/DMN: Trump 43, Biden 43

  1. Brian Dungan says:

    The Dallas Morning News quoted several people who had participated in the poll. In my experience, citing participants by name is unusual. Please explain how the News would be able to do that, and whether that is good polling practice.

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