Rick Perry would beat Kay Bailey Hutchison handily in a Republican primary held right now, according to a poll done by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Politics project.
Registered voters in this poll who said they are likely to vote in the GOP primary favored the incumbent over the challenger 38 percent to 27 percent. (The margin of error on this part of the poll is 5.24 percent, since it's a subset of the full set of those surveyed). A quarter of GOP voters haven't made up their minds, and another 7 percent would favor another unnamed candidate.
Likely Democratic primary voters don't have a strong favorite but know one name better than the others. Kinky Friedman got 13 percent to 7 percent for Leticia Van de Putte (who has now said she won't run), and 3 percent for Tom Schieffer and 2 percent for Mark Thompson. Another 14 percent said they have another unnamed candidate in mind and 62 percent were undecided. (The Democratic section of the poll has a margin of error of +/- 6.05 percent.)
If Hutchison quits to run for governor, Democrat and former Comptroller John Sharp and Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst lead a pack that's chasing a huge — 62 percent — undecided vote. Sharp got 10 percent, Dewhurst got 9 percent, followed by Houston Mayor Bill White, at 7 percent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, at 6 percent, state Sen. Florence Shapiro, 3 percent, and Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams, and former Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams, each at 1 percent. The pollsters didn't attach offices or former offices to those folks, but did identify their party affiliations.
The poll of 924 adults was conducted June 11-22 and (with the exception of the subsets for the primaries) has a margin of error of +/- 3.22 percent. You can see the full results, along with some charts, at the Texas Politics Project.
Asked a series of questions about words describing President Barack Obama, 70 percent said "intelligent" describes him well; 54 percent said "leadership" is a good description; and 45 percent said "honest" fits him. On that last one, 42 percent said "honest" does not describe him well. A third didn't like the "leadership" description for him. In this poll, 46 percent of Texans disapprove of the way Obama is doing his job as against 43 percent who approve. His handling of the economy gets worse marks: 51 percent disapprove, while 38 percent approve. Congress gets similarly bad marks: 20 percent approve of the job federal legislators are doing, and 58 percent disapprove. The poll included a presidential horse race question: In Texas right now, Obama would lose a reelection race to Republican Mitt Romney 39-34.
Two in five Texans said they approve "somewhat" or "strongly" of the job Perry has been doing as governor; 32 percent don't approve; and 28 percent don't lean one way or the other. The Legislature's approval ratings were 29 percent positive, 35 negative, and mainly neutral.
The respondents narrowly agree with the state's decision not to accept federal stimulus money for unemployment insurance. The Guv and the Lege turned down $555 million in federal money for that program; 43 percent agree with them, 36 percent disagree, and 21 percent didn't have a preference.
Source: Texas Weekly
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