Rick Perry’s pollster Mike Baselice has released a poll showing John McCain with a significant lead over either Democratic candidate for President in Texas – he pegs McCain with a 52-36 advantage over Barack Obama, and a 51-36 edge over Hillary Clinton. You can read his poll memo here (PDF) for the crosstabs; Baselice says another poll done four weeks ago got a similar result.
I’ll just say two things. One is that Baselice’s numbers are pretty far removed from what other pollsters have found; see TPM Election Central, for instance, which notes a Rasmussen result from early May that had McCain up by five and six over Obama and Clinton. That could mean some movement in public opinion, though given Baselice’s report of near-identical numbers from earlier in May, that seems unlikely. I think it’s probably the case that Baselice is making different assumptions about the electorate; he has the partisan breakdown at 48R/40D, with a 6R/4D split among the remainder. I think that overstates the case – I don’t think Republicans have a ten-point advantage any more. But maybe he’s right and it’s the other outfits that are wrong. Some numbers from a Democratic source would be interesting to see for comparison purposes.
One more item: On June 2 of 2004, Rasmussen released poll numbers showing Bush over Kerry by a 55-38 margin in Texas. That’s about the same spread as McCain currently enjoys in this poll (17 points versus 16 or 15), presumably with fewer undecideds. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time believing that John McCain is doing about as well in Texas in 2008 as George W. Bush was at the same time in 2004. You can make of that what you will, but I’ve got my doubts about Baselice’s results.
We’re supposed to believe McCain would carry South Texas by 52% against Obama?