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July 13th, 2020:

UT-Tyler/DMN: Biden 48, Trump 43

Jul 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Holy mackeral.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has built a 5-point lead over President Donald Trump in Texas, as unease over Trump’s handling of coronavirus mounts, a new Dallas Morning News-University of Texas Tyler poll has found.

If the general election were held today, Biden would carry Texas, with 46% of the vote to Trump’s 41%. 14% were undecided or named someone else.

Biden’s lead, which comes after he and Trump were tied 43%-43% in The News and UT-Tyler’s April survey, is significant, if barely: The poll, conducted June 29-July 7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.24 percentage points.

The story behind Biden’s slight bulge is the softening of the Republican incumbent’s support among independents and “weak partisans,” said Kenneth Bryant Jr., a UT-Tyler political scientist who helped design the poll. “While President Trump has and still enjoys near universal approval from Republicans, and overwhelming disfavor from Democrats, he has lost considerable ground among the folks in the middle, who may ultimately decide who wins Texas in November,” Bryant said.

Up to now, though, the Biden campaign has done little to demonstrate it’ll make a major effort before the Nov. 3 general election in Texas. The state hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter carried the state in 1976.

The poll, the fourth of six tracking the 2020 election and current events by The News and the UT-Tyler Center for Public Opinion, also showed some movement, though not enough to be significant, by long-time Dallas state Sen. Royce West in Tuesday’s runoff for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Purple Heart winner and political neophyte MJ Hegar of Round Rock, who has a big financial edge as well as late-hour help in the form of a TV ad blitz by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and EMILY’s List, leads West, 32% to 20%, among Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, the poll found.

Since April, when Hegar led West, 32% to 16%, he’s closed the deficit with Hegar among women and college-educated voters to single digits. For Democratic voters, the poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.27 percentage points.

Neither Democrat gained much traction from the April survey as their party’s November standard bearer against three-term GOP incumbent Sen. John Cornyn: If the general election were held today, Cornyn would win a plurality of 37% against Hegar’s 26%, with 31% undecided, the latest poll found. Against West, Cornyn’s plurality would be slightly larger: 37% to West’s 25%, with 32% undecided.

The numbers in the headline of this post are different than the numbers cited in the story because the poll presented two results, one for registered voters and one for likely voters. Among registered voters (sample size 1,909), Biden leads 46-41. Among likely voters (sample size 1,677), it’s Biden 48-43 over Trump, as the headline notes. You can see both listed on the FiveThirtyEight page for Texas, though only the RV sample is given on the UT-Tyler PoliSci homepage.

As noted, in the April poll, Biden and Trump were tied at 43. (They finally have the RV sample for that poll published.) The funny thing is, if you look at the breakdown in each sample, the reason for the shift isn’t quite as pollster Kenneth Bryant puts it. In April, Biden led among Dems 84-6 and among indies 43-28, while Trump led among Republicans 87-5. In June, Biden led among Dems in the RV sample 87-4 and among indies 44-28, while Trump led among Republicans 87-9. In other words, Biden did a smidge better among Dems and Trump slipped a tiny bit among Republicans while indies were static. In the LV sample, however, Biden’s lead among indies jumped to 53-29, while the other numbers were the same. Indies were a bigger portion of the RV sample than the LV sample, so the larger shift was muted a bit by the larger partisan subgroups. My point here is that Biden’s advantage came from a bit of movement in all three subsamples.

As for the Senate race, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the numbers for now, as there are a lot of undecided voters in these samples – 33-34% of Dems in the RV sample, 24% of Republicans, and 41 or 43% of indies, with Hegar being the former numbers. (I went with the RV numbers here instead of the LV numbers because the LV numbers in the Hegar-Cornyn race are messed up.) That said, Cornyn draws more Dem support (13%) than Trump does without giving up more Republican support, so it’s not unreasonable to think Cornyn could run ahead of Trump. It’s too early to say on that score, but we’ll keep an eye on this once we have a single opponent for Cornyn. Hegar’s lead over West among Dem voters is a bit less now, but primary runoff polling is super tricky, so let’s not spend too much time on that, either.

One more number of interest, for the question “If the general election were today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate for the Texas State House?” – Democratic 52, Republican 48 in the RV sample, 52-47 in the LV sample. This is one point up for Dems and down for Republicans since April. Other polls generally don’t ask this kind of question so it’s hard to evaluate it as is, but there you have it anyway.

Finally, the approval numbers, which I’ll take from the RV sample. General approval:

Trump – 42 approve, 50 disapprove (42% disapprove strongly)
Greg Abbott – 54 approve, 31 disapprove
Dan Patrick – 37 approve, 37 disapprove

“Handling coronavirus” approval:

Trump – 38 approve, 52 disapprove (44% disapprove strongly)
Abbott – 48 approve, 40 disapprove
“Local leaders” (Mayors and County Judges) – 62 approve, 23 disapprove

Still good numbers for Greg Abbott, though softer on coronavirus. Clearly, everyone knows who’s doing the real work, though.

Believe it or not, there’s another poll out there, not quite as good for Biden but still strong. I’ll have that for tomorrow. And the eleven-poll average, using RV numbers from this poll to be consistent, is Trump 46.0, Biden 44.6, for a 1.4 point difference between the two. Pretty amazing, no?

AG sides with Mayor Turner in GOP convention litigation

Jul 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

But only in a limited and technical way, so cool your jets.

Mayor Sylvester Turner

The Texas Attorney General’s Office on Saturday sided with Mayor Sylvester Turner in a legal dispute over the state Republican Party’s in-person convention, arguing that the Texas Supreme Court should reject the party’s attempt to proceed with the event.

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins — the state’s top appellate lawyer — said that despite the party’s “troubling factual allegations,” the court should deny its petition for failing to “properly invoke [the court’s] mandamus authority.”

The legal proceedings began earlier this week after Turner ordered Houston First Corp., the city nonprofit that manages the convention site, to cancel the event over concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. The Republican Party sued Turner and Houston First, but a Harris County judge denied the party’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked Turner from canceling the event. The party then filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Texas Supreme Court.

In its petition, the party invoked a section of Texas’ election code that allows the court to issue orders that “compel the performance of any duty imposed by law in connection with the holding of an election or a political party convention.” In his brief, Hawkins argued that the party’s convention contract with Houston First does not apply, because the convention was to be held under a contract, not a law.

Prior Supreme Court rulings have “distinguished ‘a duty created under [a] contract’ as legally distinct from ‘a duty imposed by law,’” Hawkins wrote.

See here for the background, and here for a copy of the AG’s brief. A copy of the original writ is here. As the story notes, the AG similarly opposed Steven Hotze’s petition on the matter, arguing Hotze has no business in this matter. The Court also has the matter of the motion for four of them to recuse themselves to sort out. I presume that has to happen first, since we have to have the question of who is ruling on the write of mandamus settled before the ruling can happen. Gonna be a busy couple of days at the SCOTX. Oh, and Paxton also opposed Hotze’s petition for a TRO against Judge Hidalgo’s latest face mask order, on the grounds that Hotze’s multiple challenges to the Texas Disaster Act may cause “irreparable harm” to the state’s sovreignty. I presume there will be a similar filing against Hotze’s lawsuit challenging Abbott’s face mask order, too. And yes, the correct response to all this is exasperation and exhaustion.

The hidden toll

Jul 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
14 comments

Another reason why the reported death count from COVID-19 is too low: People who didn’t know they were infected and die at home may never be tested or counted.

As coronavirus cases surge, inundating hospitals and leading to testing shortages, a rapidly growing number of Houston area residents are dying at home, according to an NBC News and ProPublica review of Houston Fire Department data. An increasing number of these at-home deaths have been confirmed to be the result of COVID-19, Harris County medical examiner data shows.

The previously unreported jump in people dying at home is the latest indicator of a mounting crisis in a region beset by one of the nation’s worst and fastest-growing coronavirus outbreaks. On Tuesday, a record 3,851 people were hospitalized for the coronavirus in the Houston region, exceeding normal intensive care capacity and sending some hospitals scrambling to find additional staff and space.

The uptick in the number of people dying before they can even reach a hospital in Houston draws parallels to what happened in New York City in March and April, when there was a spike in the number of times firefighters responded to medical calls, only to discover that the person in need of help had already died. These increases also echo those reported during outbreaks in Detroit and Boston, when the number of people dying at home jumped as coronavirus cases surged.

While far more people died of COVID-19 in those cities than have died so far in Houston, researchers and paramedics say that the trend of sudden at-home deaths in Texas’ largest city is concerning because it shows that the virus’s toll may be deeper than what appears in official death tallies and daily hospitalization reports.

Many people who die at home are not tested for COVID-19, said Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In New York City, for example, only 16 percent of the 11,475 at-home deaths between February and June have been attributed to COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There’s no reflexive testing,” Faust said, noting that medical examiners are selective about the cases they take. “There’s no pressure to call it a COVID death.”

The rise in at-home deaths may also reflect people who are afraid to go to the hospital because of COVID-19, and who die of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and other conditions not tied to the coronavirus, Faust said.

Ultimately, Faust said, public health experts trying to assess the toll from COVID will need to study how many excess deaths there are in a particular region and whether the demographics of those who died are different from what one might expect. “If there’s a huge spike in at-home deaths but no real spike in overall deaths, it’s just sort of rearranging deck chairs.”

There’s more, so go read the rest. I don’t have anything to add other than the usual disclaimer that none of this had to happen. We could have had a federal government that actually prepared for COVID-19. We could have had a state government that cared about reopening in a safe and scientifically-driven manner. We have neither of those things – yet – and so here we are. Keep that in mind, today and every day, not just through this November, but through November of 2022.

Give the bars a break

Jul 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’m OK with this.

The Texas Restaurant Association has asked Gov. Greg Abbott to revise the definitions of “bar” in his recent order closing drinking establishments in response to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

In a letter to the governor, the TRA argues that if businesses now classified as bars but equipped with permanent kitchen facilities are allowed to reopen as restaurants, 1,500 Texas businesses could resume operation and put up to 35,000 people back to work.

Under current state rules, any establishment that makes 51% of its revenue from alcohol sales is classified as a bar, even if it serves food. The TRA’s proposed change to that definition could clear the reopening of San Antonio businesses such as Southtown fixture The Friendly Spot and brewpub Weathered Souls.

“The definition of ‘bars’ in Gov. Abbott’s executive order has inadvertently captured a lot of restaurants, requiring them to close their dining rooms, even though they were following all of the statewide health protocols for restaurants,” the TRA said in a statement accompanying the letter.

“All restaurants should be allowed to serve the public under the same health and safety standards.”

Lots of bars serve food, and as far as I’m concerned, every bar that has a kitchen ought to be able to prepare meals to go for the duration and beyond. Let them sell mixed drinks to go, too. All that qualifies as low-risk activity and should be enabled and encouraged as a sensible way to let people work without putting their health in significant jeopardy. I’m less interested in letting them open their dining rooms at this time, especially now when we’re talking about maybe having to shut down again, but for to go service they should be considered as restaurants.

You may as well mark today’s date on your calendar, because it will be a long time before I say these words again: I agree with Sid Miller.

In a July 1 letter, Miller asked Gov. Greg Abbott to amend the recent order that closed all Texas bars so that wineries and tasting rooms can reopen immediately.

Currently, wineries and tasting rooms are lumped into the same business category as bars. That’s because more than 51% of their revenue comes from the sale of alcoholic beverages.

“I am sure you will agree tasting rooms are not bars, nor do they present the same reasons for concern related to excessive alcohol intake or inability to social distance as found in a bar,” Miller writes.

The letter noted that nearly 95% of all Texas wine is sold in tasting rooms, and without that revenue, Texas winemakers may not have the ability to purchase grapes for future Hill Country vintages.

“When these wineries suffer, we lose more than just wine,” the letter continued. “The closure of these testing rooms has a damaging downstream effect on the grape producers, wineries and surrounding communities…”

I’m a bit more measured on this one, since tasting rooms are mostly going to be inside. Outdoor tasting areas should be allowed with social distancing, and indoor tasting rooms should be allowed to operate with the same basic constraints as restaurants, which is to say with a max 50% capacity right now. I believe wineries can sell their wares to go for off-premises consumption, in the way that breweries now can, but if there are any restrictions on this they should be lifted, just as all of our anachronistic and anti-consumer laws regulating beer, wine, and liquor ought to be reformed or repealed. The point here is that both of these proposals are low risk and good for both the businesses and the consumers, and we should do them. Your move, Governor.

UPDATE: Case in point.