Democrats Have A Real Chance In The 2014 Texas Governor Race

When State Senator Wendy Davis declared her candidacy for governor on the Democratic ticket a few weeks ago, the state Republican Party just laughed, and said their likely candidate (Attorney General Greg Abbott) would crush her in the statewide race. But it looks like their optimism may have been a bit premature.

First came a Texas Lyceum Poll. It showed Abbott had an 8 point lead (29% to 21%), but half of Texas voters said they didn't know yet who they might vote for in the governor race. That, along with some pretty impressive donations flowing into the Davis campaign, gave Democrats some confidence that they might actually have a shot at winning in 2014 (something they haven't been able to do for over 20 years now).

Now a new poll has been released, and it is a state poll that has been pretty accurate in the past in predicting just where the state's political dominoes will fall. It is the University of Texas / Texas Tribune Poll (conducted between October 18th and 22nd of 1,200 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2.83 points). And the UT/TT Poll, taken about a month after the Texas Lyceum Poll, shows a tighter race with only about 5% now separating the Republican and Democratic candidates (40% to 35%, with 5% supporting a Libertarian candidate and 20% undecided).

The poll gets really interesting when you look at the voter choice by political preference. It's no surprise that Republicans overwhelmingly support Abbott and Democrats overwhelmingly support Davis. But the Independents (the group that may well decide the eventual winner) is almost evenly split between the two candidates -- with 32% favoring Abbott and 31% supporting Davis, and the largest percentage of all (37%) still unsure which candidate to vote for.

The bottom chart shows why this race is getting tighter. It turns out that the favorability of the two candidates is almost identical. About 36% view Abbott favorably and 24% view him unfavorably. And 37% view Davis favorably while 24 view her unfavorably.

The upshot of all of this is that Abbott is not going to have it as easy as some originally thought. For the first time in many years, I think we may have a real race on our hands for governor -- and either candidate could win. It will be interesting to see how Abbott and Davis fare in the coming months, but Democrats should be encouraged by this new poll.