article
Beto O’Rourke (left, photo by Aaron E. Martinez) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (right, photo by John Medina)
AUSTIN, Texas – A new poll shows Democratic voters overwhelmingly back former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in a hypothetical U.S. Senate primary despite neither of them being officially declared in the race.
Hypothetical Democratic Primary
In a statewide poll of hypothetical candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, 27% of Democratic voters said they support O’Rourke, while another 26% said they support Crockett. This despite neither having entered the race.
The poll shows declared candidate Colin Allred having 13% of the voters’ support, state Rep. James Talarico with 7% and Congressman Joaquin Castro polling at 4%. Castro has also not declared for the race.
In the poll, conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research, 18% of Democratic voters said they were undecided.
Texas Public Opinion Research notes that support for the candidates could be tied to familiarity of those candidates among Democratic voters.
The poll notes that 76% of those polled expressed an opinion on O’Rourke, followed by 69% of those polled having an opinion on Allred. Crockett was the next most known with 52% of Democrats having an opinion, followed by 43% for Castro and just 23% for Talarico.
What they’re saying:
“Because voters are more familiar with some candidates than others, comparing support levels this early in the race doesn’t tell the full story,” TPOR said.
TPOR then took both numbers to determine how a candidate’s support compared to their familiarity and found Crockett leading candidates with her 26% of vote share reflecting 50% of her familiarity level. O’Rourke came in second at 36% and Talarico in third with 30%. Allred’s support comes in at just 19% compared to his familiarity, while Castro is at only 9%.
“Across the field, Crockett has consolidated support among Democratic voters who know her, while Talarico appears to have the most room for growth, due to his limited name recognition,” TPOR said.
In fact, of the 843 voters polled, 61% said they had never heard of Talarico. By comparison, 21% of voters were unable to identify Allred and 14% said they did not know O’Rourke.
Republican Senate primary
On the Republican side of the primary, the poll shows a close race between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Among those polled, Cornyn holds a 32% to 26% lead. The also shows 29% of those who said they would vote in the Republican primary are undecided.
Cornyn holds large leads among voters aged 65 and older, garnering support from half of those polled compared to Paxton’s 19%. Cornyn is also outperforming Paxton among college-educated voters 40% to 26%. Independent voters who plan to vote in the Republican primary are also drawn to Cornyn with 29% showing support for the senator while 22% back Paxton.
General statewide elections
In matchups of just party affiliation, Republicans hold leads in three major statewide races.
In the race for governor, 49% of those polled said they would vote for the Republican candidate, while 43% would vote Democrat.
The race for senate drew similar numbers with 48% saying they would vote republican, compared to 43% saying they would vote Democrat.
The race for attorney general is the most competitive of the statewide races polled, with 47% of those polled saying they would vote for the Republican candidate and 44% percent saying they would vote for a Democrat.
The Source: Information in this article comes from a poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research surveying 843 registered voters in Texas between Aug. 27-29. The poll’s margin of error is 4.6 percentage points.
Leave a Reply