Indy ad for Rick Perry: 'Texas Voter'

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Here's an independently-produced (in Houston) ad for Rick Perry, who was endorsed early by Sarah Palin in the race for governor of Texas:


- JP

Texas Poll: Palin 51, Obama 36

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On this blog we often say that our great state is Sarah Palin country. Now we have some hard research to back that statement up. According to the Annual Texas Interested Citizens Survey, an opinion poll conducted by Lighthouse Opinion Polling & Research of Fort Worth this month, Gov. Palin would thrash Barack Obama among Texas voters by a margin of 15 points if that hypothetical matchup were held today. Texans prefer Palin to the president, 51 percent to 36 percent.

Commissioned by the Texas Civil Justice League, Texas Medical Association and the Texas Farm Bureau, the poll surveyed 1,200 Texans spread proportionately across all of the state's regions and media markets. Only Lone Star State citizens who voted in 2006 or 2008 were sampled.

Gov. Rick Perry is maintaining an 11-point lead over Democrat Bill White at 48 percent to 37 percent, with 11 percent undecided and the remainder going to minor-party candidates:

It shows Perry with a 15-point advantage in the Houston media market, tied in Dallas and ahead in every other geographic area except for Austin and the border.

[...]

Down the ballot, Republicans are — according to this survey — trouncing Democrats. They've got Republican David Dewhurst being Democrat Linda Chavez-Thompson by 35 percentage points (55-20) in the race for lieutenant governor, Attorney General Greg Abbott beating Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky by 38 points in that race (58-23), and Republican Eva Guzman ahead of Democrat Blake Bailey in the race for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court by a 37-25 margin.

The top issues on the minds of Texas voters are illegal immigration (31 percent), then jobs (25 percent) and education, (14 percent).

The poll was conducted by telephone October 15 through 17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percent. Partial crosstabs, in PDF format, are here.

h/t: Bryan Preston

- JP

Houston Chronicle: Latest polls show Perry poised for re-election

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R.G. Ratcliffe, the Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau Chief, reports that three new polls show Texas Governor Rick Perry on the threshold of re-election to a third term while support for former Houston Mayor Bill White remains stuck in the low forties and high thirties:

Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said White is stuck at the base Democratic vote because he has been unable to make a policy or message issue stick to Perry as a negative.

"At this point, I don't see anything White can do," Jones said.

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University of Texas political scientist Bruce Buchanan said it is a tough year for any Democrat to defeat a Republican incumbent like Perry. He said White has run too many "flags up the flagpole" without having an over-arching message on why voters need to boot Perry out of office.

"The trend is in the wrong direction for White," Buchanan said. "The opportunity clock is ticking and time is running out."

Two of the polls have Perry with 50 percent or more support of the likely voters, while the third poll has him at 48 percent support but with victory within the survey's margin of error.

White had 43 percent support in two of the surveys and 36 percent in the third.

The worst news for White was that none of the polls had enough undecided voters for him to reach a majority without a major change in the election's dynamics.
A plurality victory?

To win, White will have to take voters away from Perry or hope that third party candidates Libertarian Kathie Glass and Green Party candidate Deb Shafto draw enough votes to make a plurality victory possible.

The surveys:

Texas Lyceum/University of Texas, Sept. 22-30: Perry, 48 percent; White, 43 percent.

Belo/Public Strategies, Sept. 26-Oct.2: Perry 50 percent; White, 36 percent.

Rasmussen Reports, Oct. 6: Perry, 53 percent; White, 42 percent. Rasmussen moved the race from leans GOP to solid GOP.

A survey conducted for the Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News and three other Texas newspapers in mid September showed Perry leading with 46 percent to White's 39 percent.

Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin endorsed Perry for re-election early in 2009, calling him the "true conservative" in the race for governor of the Lone Star state. Perry easily won the Texas Republican primary, claiming 51 percent of the vote to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's 30 percent and 19 percent for former Wharton County GOP Chairwoman Debra Medina.

- JP

Geraghty: Whatever Happened to Bill White?

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At NRO's Campaign Spot blog, Jim Geraghty has noticed that Bill White seems to have dropped off the radar screen:

Earlier this year, you heard a lot of buzz about former Houston mayor Bill White’s chances to beat Texas governor Rick Perry, a win that would undoubtedly invigorate Democrats and persuade them that they can win, with the right candidates, even in the reddest parts of the country.

Well, Jim, from our vantage point down here on the Brazos, we can assure you all that buzz was just the sound of the more liberal elements of the Texas media stuck on the spin cycle for their beloved Democrat Party. Geraghty quotes the liberal Houston Chronicle, which was engaged in some wishful thinking when it fantasized:

“The former Houston mayor arguably is the strongest gubernatorial candidate Democrats have nominated since Ann Richards in 1990.”

Geraghty checked the poll numbers and found that, except for a June PPP outlier, Gov. Rick Perry's lead has consistently been 10 points or more ahead of White since -- with some help from Sarah Palin in the form of an endorsement and a key campaign appearance in the Houston area at Cypress -- Perry convincingly defeated U.S. Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison for the GOP gubernatorial nomination:

So maybe this race won’t be so competitive after all.

It never was. Though the major newspapers in Texas all lean liberal in their editorial points of view, Texas is conservative country. And no matter how many Democrats dwell in the big state's big cities, they are outnumbered by conservatives in the rural areas and not-so-gigantic cities and smaller towns. And the Lone Star State state has a bunch of those smaller towns.

God bless Texas!

- JP