Abbott’s approval rating

This has gotten a bit of chatter, so let’s take a closer look.

We released the remaining results of the June 2020 UT/Texas Politics Project Poll today. This post focuses on Texans’ assessment of the state’s political leaders, the state of the economy in Texas, and the direction the state is headed.

The poll also included results on attitudes on the coronavirus and the ongoing response; race, policing, and recent protests; and the national economy and political landscape. There are links to a summary of all results and a crosstab file at the top of this page. As always, these files are available in the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, along with a data file and codebook. All the graphics in this post as well as hundreds of others from the June poll are available at the archive and at our “latest poll” page.

Governor Greg Abbott’s job approval rating dropped just below 50% approval – though at 49%, just below – for the first time in two years, an 7-point decline since the April UT/Texas Tribune Poll, while disapproval of his job performance increased from 32% in both February and April polling to 39% in June.

Abbott’s 56% overall job approval in April represented the highwater mark of his governorship, seemingly buoyed by relatively high approval from Democrats, 24% of whom approved of the job he was doing in the early stages of the state’s attempts to grapple with COVID-19. In the meantime, Abbott reopened Texas, but has since been forced to batten down the hatches when the opening contributed to a resurgence of the virus. His approval numbers among Democrats sagged to 13%, with 74% disapproving – 51% disapproving strongly – the highest disapproval rate among Democrats of his governorship.

Abbott’s approval rating among Republicans decreased from 88% to 83% over the same period, remaining within a long established band, and a sign that carping from far-right opinion leaders, grass tops groups, and a small handful of state legislators does not seem to be rampant among his base.

Approval of Abbott’s handling of the coronavirus/COVID-19 was approximate to his overall job approval rating: 49% approved and 41% disapproved. However, this represented a significant decline from his April ratings in which 56% expressed approval compared to only 29% who disapproved.

You should click over to see the charts. Oddly, Abbott registered a 48% approval rating, against 34% disapproval, in their February poll, so that sentence about “first time in two years” is not accurate, but whatever. If you look at the trend lines, Abbott’s approval rating in this poll was remarkably stable, either 51% or 52% all through 2018 and 2019, before dipping to 48% then jumping to 56% and sliding back to 49% in the three polls so far this year. If you look at it that way, over the longer term, 49% isn’t really out of line – the 56% result is the outlier – though the 39% disapproval is a new high. The last two results have the lowest “don’t know/no opinion” responses, which may also be driving these extremes for him.

You know my mantra about polls: This is just one result. What have the other polls said about Abbott’s approval rating lately? I’m glad you asked:

UT/Trib, July 2

Trump 46 approve, 48 disapprove
Abbott 49 approve, 39 disapprove

Fox, June 25

Trump 50 approve, 48 disapprove
Abbott 63 approve, 32 disapprove

Quinnipiac, June 3

Trump 45 approve, 50 disapprove
Abbott 56 approve, 32 disapprove

Emerson, May 13

Trump 46 approve, 44 disapprove
Abbott 54 approve, 32 disapprove

There have been several PPP polls of Texas in this time frame, but alas, none of them have asked about Greg Abbott, so this is all we have. This will I hope reinforce my point that the UT/Trib poll is but one result, and we’re going to need more data points before we can draw any conclusions. It would be nice to think that Abbott is justifiably suffering for his crappy response to coronavirus, but it’s too soon to tell.

That said, Ross Ramsey makes a good point.

If Abbott were on the ballot this year, he’d face real competition — even in a Republican Party primary. Former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas has been on the speaking circuit since before the pandemic, telling crowds about what he sees as a fake conservative government dominated by Republicans in Austin.

The new conservative phenom, Shelley Luther of Pilot Point, is still on the hustings months after her protest of Abbott’s business shutdowns, her jailing and the opening of her Dallas salon — the reasons that we know her name. She recently said at an Austin rally that she’s thinking about a run for office.

And there’s always Patrick, the lieutenant governor whose strength with small government and social conservatives has always worked as a restraint against Abbott siding with the party’s moderates.

All that is to say nothing of the Democrats, who, amid a generational change in top talent, have built a bench of candidates in local government, a crew that includes officeholders like Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, both of whom insisted the governor was too quick to relax his efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus, and both of whom have been at odds with him about pushing for tougher measures to slow it now.

[…]

It’s too early to handicap 2022; we don’t know what’s going to happen in the elections four months from now. But it’s not too early to scan the field, to see whether the issues are bending to the advantage of incumbents or potential challengers.

Change comes fast, too: At the beginning of this year, Abbott looked strong, with a great economy, a sound state budget and only the early rumblings of a worldwide pandemic.

And now? That early stability has evaporated, and the politics have become more treacherous.

It’s a long way to 2022, and in between is a legislative session where Abbott can woo back the crazies or try to get stuff done to bolster his image with everyone else. A lot can happen, and Abbott has a smart political team who are seeing the same things we are. But at least there’s hope. The Texas Signal has more.

(If you scroll down a little further on that UT/Texas Politics Project page, you’ll see that Dan Patrick’s approval rating has been headed towards negative territory, and is considerably worse than where it was just before the last election, which he barely won. So we have that going for us, which is nice. But again, always be wary of single data points.)

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