Real Estate Mogul and Republican Presidential nominee Donald J Trump has surged to a twelve point lead in Texas over Former Secretary of State and Democrat nominee, Hillary R. Clinton in the latest KTVT CBS 11 Dixie Strategies Poll.
If the presidential election were held today, about 52 percent of likely general election voters said they would vote for Trump while just over 39 percent said they would vote for Clinton. This marks the first time Trump has polled over 50 percent in Texas and casts doubt on any Democratic victory on November 8.
Earlier polls had Trump at 46 percent in August and 45 percent in October. Clinton polled at 35 percent in August and 38 percent in October.
With Clinton still polling in the upper 30’s as she has in previous polls much of Trump’s rise in the polls has come from independents and undecided voters.
Speaking to CBS 11’s Jack Fink on Facebook Live Tuesday afternoon, pollster Brian Graham of Dixie Strategies said, “People have now decided… and it appears that Donald Trump has captured most of those undecided voters as we have gotten closer [to the election].”
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Graham says Trump is doing better with Hispanics and African Americans despite some of his controversial comments. “Perhaps it’s his bold statements; perhaps it’s that he is ‘not the establishment;’ perhaps it’s that he’s something different, ” said Graham. “Some Republicans have won a majority of Hispanic votes in Texas…. now he’s not there, but he’s doing decent in the state of Texas with Hispanics compared to how his numbers look nationwide,” Graham continued.
See here for the August version of this poll, and here for the early October version of it. This poll was conducted between October 27 and 29, which is to say while early voting was going on, but apparently they didn’t ask if the respondent had already voted and if so for whom. Their numbers for non-white voters are ridiculous – 24% of black voters in their sample say they are voting for Trump, as do 39% of Latinos. To put it mildly, I don’t buy any of that. The only other poll I’ve sampled that had Trump up by as much as 10 was the August KTVT/Dixie Strategies poll; FiveThirtyEight includes two others, a Google Consumer Survey poll and a weird Ipsos tracker that has consistently had Trump up by 13-15 points. The data that I have seen from early voting does not jibe with this kind of result, but hey, who knows? These guys are either outliers or geniuses. We’ll know soon enough. Link via PDiddie.