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July 4th, 2020:

PPP: Biden 48, Trump 46

Jul 4th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

And here’s poll number two, which is technically about the Texas Senate race but I’m counting it as a Presidential poll for consistency.

MJ Hegar

Public Policy Polling’s newest Texas survey finds that John Cornyn has basically no profile in Texas. Only 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 34% with an unfavorable one and a 39% plurality don’t have any opinion about him one way or the other. The numbers when it comes to his job approval are similar-29% approve, 33% disapprove, and 38% have no opinion.

Cornyn’s lack of a profile with Texans make him susceptible to the overall political winds in the state, and those are blowing the wrong way for Republicans right now. Only 46% of voters approve of the job Donald Trump is doing to 51% who disapprove, and Joe Biden leads him by 2 points at 48-46.

Cornyn starts out with the lead over likely general election opponent MJ Hegar 42-35. But when you dig into the undecideds (23% of the electorate) for Senate, 59% of them are voting for Biden to only 25% who are voting for Trump. In an era where ticket splitting is less and less of a thing, those people are likely to end up voting the same party for Senate as President. If the undecideds broke that way, Hegar would have the slightest of leads over Cornyn. This is likely to be a highly competitive race.

Our first Hegar-Cornyn poll of 2020 bears a strong resemblance to our first Beto O’Rourke- Ted Cruz poll of 2018. In that poll Cruz lead 45-37, an 8 point lead similar to Cornyn’s starting out point. We pinpointed then that the race might end up close because Cruz had just a 38% favorability rating- and that’s a lot better than the 27% Cornyn starts out with here.

After O’Rourke won the nomination and became better known over the course of the year, he was able to build the race into a tossup. Hegar (who currently has just 34% name recognition) is likely to do the same in the months ahead if she wins the nomination.

PPP surveyed 729 Texas voters on June 24th and 25th on behalf of EMILY’s List. The survey was conducted half by calls to landlines and half by texts to cell phones, and the margin of error is +/-3.6%. Full toplines here.

See here for the other Thursday poll, and here for the poll data. The fact that it was commissioned by Emily’s List answers my question about why they polled MJ Hegar and not also Royce West. This result is pretty consistent with that Fox poll that had Cornyn up on both Dems by ten points, but with a larger share of the “undecided” vote being Dems. If I had to guess, West would probably have done about as well against Cornyn in this poll, as was the case with the Fox poll. It’s clear that the biggest threat to Cornyn is Donald Trump’s sagging fortunes in Texas. The better Biden does, the worse off Cornyn is. Also, too, Trump’s approval rating (46 approve, 51 disapprove) is pretty lousy, and another example of him being stuck at that level in his “vote for” support. Keep keeping an eye on that. Oh, and with these two polls in the books, the average over the ten total polls is Trump 46.3, Biden 44.5, now a bit less than a two-point gap. Carry on.

State GOP will have its convention

Jul 4th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

I hope they don’t kill any convention or hotel workers as a result. Beyond that, I don’t know what to say.

The Texas GOP’s executive committee voted Thursday night to proceed with plans to hold the party’s in-person convention in Houston later this month.

The State Republican Executive Committee, a 64-member body that serves as the governing board of the state party, voted 40-20 to approve the resolution supporting the in-person gathering. Thursday’s vote comes as the state grapples with a surge of coronavirus cases, with Houston serving as one of the country’s hot spots for the virus.

The SREC is scheduled to meet again Sunday to consider changing the party’s rules. Those rules will include a tweak that allows the party to act on an “emergency fallback contingency plan,” if necessary, to hold a virtual convention, party Chair James Dickey told members as he kicked off Thursday’s virtual meeting.

The convention, scheduled for July 16-18, will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center, where roughly 6,000 people are expected to attend.

[…]

Over the past week, demands have mounted for the party to cancel plans for an in-person convention, with some Republicans stating they would not attend such an event due to safety concerns. Others have also cited concerns about the optics of attending a large gathering while small businesses in their districts remain shuttered under the governor’s orders.

Meanwhile, a faction of activists has argued that canceling an event focused on selecting delegates for the national convention and voting on the party’s platform, among other things, would not reflect well on a party that dubs itself the party of personal responsibility. Some have also suggested that a virtual convention could disenfranchise certain delegates.

On Tuesday, the party’s plans for an in-person convention looked increasingly uncertain, when the Texas Medical Association, the state’s largest medical group, called on the party to cancel the event, a reversal that came just one day after The Texas Tribune reported on TMA’s sponsorship of the convention.

After Thursday night’s vote, TMA announced it had withdrawn as an advertiser to the convention, arguing that face masks alone at such a large gathering were not enough.

“With or without masks, an indoor gathering of thousands of people from all around the state in a city with tens of thousands of active COVID-19 cases poses a significant health risk to conventiongoers, convention workers, health care workers, and the residents of Houston,” Diana Fite, the group’s president, said in a statement. “We are concerned not only for the City of Houston but also for the communities to which the delegates will return, giving the virus easy transportation to parts of Texas that have far fewer cases.”

See here and here for the background. Kudos to the TMA for backing out as sponsors, which they had initially said they would not do because of their need to engage with (read: lobby) Republicans directly. As noted, all this occurred on the same day as Greg Abbott’s mask order, which at least will mostly require attendees to wear them. Abbott’s order banned outdoor public gatherings of more than 100 people but had no effect on the much more hazardous indoor public gatherings. In typically wishy-washy fashion, Abbott expressed no opinion about whether or not this convention should be held in person or online.

There’s nothing we can do about the state GOP’s decision. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. But we can and should make sure that Houston First, the entity that owns the George R. Brown and the nearby Hilton Hotel, extends full health insurance coverage to all their workers who have to be there for this. If the Republicans insist on risking their own health, that’s one thing. But no one else should be made to suffer for it. The Chron has more.

No fast track on vote by mail lawsuit

Jul 4th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

I confess, I hadn’t been aware that this was in the hopper.

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t fast-track a bid by Texas Democrats to decide whether all Texas voters can vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, leaving in place the state’s current regulations for the upcoming July 14 primary runoff election.

But the case, which now returns to a lower court, could be back before the Supreme Court before the higher-stakes, larger-turnout general election in November. Current law allows voters to mail in their ballots only if they are 65 or older, confined in jail, will be out of the county during the election period or cite a disability or illness. But Texas Democrats have argued that voters who are susceptible to contracting the new coronavirus should be able to vote by mail as the pandemic continues to ravage the state.

Thursday’s one-line, unsigned order denying the Democrats’ effort to get a quick ruling comes a week after another minor loss for them at the high court. On June 26, the Supreme Court declined to reinstate a federal judge’s order that would immediately expand vote-by-mail to all Texas voters during the coronavirus pandemic.

A spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, which brought the case, said the party will “continue to fight tooth and nail for everybody’s right to vote.”

See here for the background, and Rick Hasen for a bit more explanation of what happened. As Michael Li notes, the case now goes back to the Fifth Circuit. I do think this will wind up before SCOTUS prior to November, and the question of the 26th Amendment will be decided, and that’s the more important matter. Given that we’re already voting in the primary runoff and the deadline for requesting a mail ballot has now passed, I don’t think there was much effect of this denial of certiori. If we don’t have an answer for November, that will be a problem.