Poll Shows Perry With Substantial Lead

A little over a week ago, the Rasmussen Poll showed incumbent Rick Perry with a double-digit lead over his Democratic opponent, Bill White (ex-mayor of Houston). Their poll showed Perry with 51% and White with 38% (with a 4.5 point margin of error). The Rasmussen Poll usually has a Republican bias, so I figured the lead was actually only 9 or 10 points (still a large lead though).

Now a new home state poll has been released. The University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll was taken between May 14th and 20th. They surveyed 800 registered voters, and the poll has a margin of error of 3.46 points. This poll also showed Perry with a substantial lead (9 points). It also shows that Bill White has no "coattails" to help other statewide Democratic candidates, since all of them are substantially behind their Republican opponents.

This is not totally unexpected since the Democratic candidate offers no real change from the current governor. Both are corporate-owned conservatives. It looks like the voters have decided that if they are going to wind up with a corporate-owned conservative, they might as well go with the one they know rather than the one they don't know. Personally, I don't think the Democrats will be able to wrest back control of the state until they find a smart, exciting and progressive candidate who offers a real change from the Republican policies (and that's certainly not Bill White).

Of course, there are still five months until election day and anything could still happen. But this same poll taken last February showed a very similar result. That means White (who really had no substantial opponent in his primary) has not made up any ground on Perry in the last three months. He's going to have to do better than that.

Maybe the campaign is exciting in other areas of Texas, but here in the Panhandle you wouldn't even know an election is coming. At least part of the reason for that is the lack of any interest in this area by the candidates. Not a single statewide Democratic candidate has come anywhere near here since the primaries. This is a rather Republican area of Texas, but Democrats need to remember the old adage that you can't expect someone to vote for you until you ask them for their vote.

There are those who might say this poll shows a Republican resurgence since 2008. I don't believe that is true. Texas has been a Republican state for a while, and the state went for John McCain in 2008. Daron Shaw, a UT government professor, agrees. He said, "This looks pretty much like a statewide election in Texas looks. It doesn't look like some huge Republican tide, but it doesn't look like a Democratic renaissance, either."

Here are the poll numbers for the major statewide races:

GOVERNOR

Rick Perry (R)...............44%

Bill White (D)...............35%

Other Candidate...............7%

Undecided...............15%

LT. GOVERNOR

David Dewhurst (R)...............44%

Linda Chavez-Thompson (D)...............30%

Other Candidate...............6%

Undecided...............20%

ATTORNEY GENERAL

Greg Abbott (R)...............47%

Barbara Radnofsky (D)...............28%

Other Candidate...............6%

Undecided...............20%

LAND COMMISSIONER

Jerry Patterson (R)...............39%

Hector Uribe (D)...............27%

Other Candidate...............7%

Undecided...............26%

AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER

Todd Staples (R)...............39%

Hank Gilbert (D)...............28%

Other Candidate...............6%

Undecided...............26%

RAILROAD COMMISSIONER

David Porter (R)...............39%

Jeff Weems (D)...............27%

Other Candidate...............6%

Undecided...............29%

Meanwhile, it looks like there will be at least two other parties on the November ballot -- the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. Last Monday, the Green Party turned in petitions with about 90,000 signatures on them (they needed only 43,991 signatures to get on the ballot).