From the inbox:
Leticia Gutierrez
Democrat Leticia Gutierrez is within striking distance of Republican Alex Mealer in Texas’ 9th Congressional District, according to a new poll. The Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll, conducted between September 18-19, shows that the district Republicans redrew to be safe, and that Donald Trump carried by 20 points, has become one of the most competitive congressional races in Texas.
Gutierrez was found to be trailing her republican opponent by only six points, 45–39, with 16% undecided. This is now a single-digit race. Republicans are rightfully worried and plan on spending big here to shore up the republican. The survey also showed the midterm electorate now evenly split, with 45% planning to vote for Democratic candidates and 46% planning to vote for Republican candidates.
“This poll confirms what we already knew: Texans are ready for change,” said Leticia Gutierrez. “For the last two years, Donald Trump and his corrupt allies like Ken Paxton have been putting the screws to us. Families are paying more at the pump and more at the grocery store because of a war we never wanted and a costly tariff tax. Life ain’t easy, but we don’t need politicians making it this hard. Our community is ready for someone who will fight for them, not rubber-stamp the agenda that’s making life unaffordable.”
Texas Republicans redrew the 9th District in an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting designed to create more Republican-favored seats. The new lines produced a district Trump would have won by 20 points.
Five weeks before Election Day, Republicans are playing defense. Last week, Cook Political Report shifted this race towards Democrats. USA Today named the 9th District one of three Texas House races worrying Republicans this fall, and a super PAC funded by Trump’s MAGA Inc. is already sending mail to shore up Mealer.
You can see a copy of the poll memo, which I received with the above email, here. It doesn’t have a lot of details, though it does note that Trump’s approval rating in CD09 was 45-51, and it includes these interesting tidbits:
The undecided voters are leaning our way. The 16% who are undecided backed Trump by 27 points in 2024, but they now disapprove of his job performance by 28 points. They plan to vote Democratic on the generic ballot by 11 points, and they favor James Talarico by 6 and Gina Hinojosa by 5.
The environment has shifted sharply with both statewide races statistically tied. Talarico trails Ken Paxton 47–48 in this district, and Hinojosa trails Greg Abbott 46–48. If the shift from 2024 seen in TX-09 holds across the state, both are on track to win statewide.
This is consistent with a point G. Elliott Morris has made a couple of times about the Trumpapalooza midterm convention, which is that the lower-propensity Republican voters from 2024, the ones the rally was supposed to get fired up about voting, are among the strongest disapprovers of Trump and Republicans now. Republicans will be better off if these people stay at home.
The link in the email is to this USA Today story about that Cook Political Report shift in their rating of CDs 09, 15, and 35. They still have CD09 as Likely Republican, which is why you see the Gutierrez campaign touting an internal poll that has them “just” down by six points, but it is an indicator of how things are different now.
Finally, and this is a point I made several times as we started seeing polls about various Congressional districts in 2018 being competitive, which is indeed that changes in these smaller environments mirror changes statewide. I haven’t done the math – it’s not quite as simple as comparing the percentages, you have to take into account turnout and population growth and demography – but it’s reasonable to conclude that statewide Democrats trailing by one or two points in a Trump +20 district from 2024 bodes well for their chances given that Trump won Texas by 14.
The big caveats remain: It’s an internal poll, we don’t have any info about how it was conducted or what the questions were, for this race in particular Gutierrez is far behind in financial resources and likely won’t be getting outside help, etc etc etc. But it’s of a piece, and I don’t see Mealer releasing her own internal polls that have her up by 15 or whatever. It’s still telling us something.