Recent articles in Big Jolly Times have complained about the failure of Republicans in the Texas legislature to meet the wants of grassroot Republicans. The articles and the comments that followed were highly critical of Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
If a Quinnipiac University poll taken this month is correct, then those grassroot Republicans have a lot more to worry about than the lack of right-to-life legislation.
The Quinnipiac University poll has been one of the more reliable polls among the different polls in this nation. The poll shows Biden ahead of Trump in Texas and only one point separating him and Elizabeth Warren. Here are the Texas results:
- Joe Biden 48 per cent vs President Trump on 44 per cent
- Elizabeth Warren 45 per cent vs President Trump on 46 per cent
- Bernie Sanders 44 percent vs President Trump on 47 per cent
- Beto O’Rourke 45 percent vs President Trump on 48 per cent
- Pete Buttigieg 44 per cent vs President Trump on 46 per cent
- Kamala Harris 43 per cent vs President Trump on 47 per cent
- Julian Castro 43 per cent vs President Trump on 46 per cent
Meanwhile other polls show that Beto O’Rourke, who gave Ted Cruz a run for his money, is tanking in his bid for the presidency. The Detroit Free Press reports that O’Rourke’s polling numbers among the Democratic presidential candidates has sunk to 2%. On Sunday, he said on ABC This Week that if elected president, he would order the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against Trump.
The Quinnipiac University poll was taken before Trump’s triumphant visits to Britain and France. Trump got along so well with Queen Elizabeth that she told him she hoped he would return soon. And the President gave a powerful speech at the Normandy American Cemetery. Were the poll to be taken today, it might show Trump to be ahead of Biden, and by a wider margin of Warren and the rest of the Democratic pack.
I predict that unless Biden falls on his own sword, he will end up as the Democratic nominee. He’s already cut himself on the abortion issue. Biden has been a supporter of the Hyde Amendment which states that Medicaid will not pay for an abortion unless the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. But after intense criticism from his Democratic rivals, Biden caved in on Thursday and declared he can no longer support the amendment.
No matter who the Democratic nominee is, the race for President in Texas will be close. The Democrats in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin outnumber the Republicans in those cities and the Republicans in the state’s rural counties may not be enough to keep Texas from becoming – God forbid – a Blue State.
And if Trump loses Texas next year, he will be only a one-term president.
It’s a given that even if Charlie Manson were the Democratic presidential candidate, California and New York would vote for him. But if the bedrock red state of Texas were to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2020, the key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida would almost certainly follow suite.
Instead of fighting among themselves, Texas Republicans must put their differences aside and work like hell for a Trump victory. And if they want to keep the state red, Texas Republicans must fight hard for the women’s vote, instead of – yes, I know this is heresy – the right-to-life vote, a vote they already have.
Can you tell where Quinnipiac was on the 2016 presidential polling?
On October 19, 2016, Quinnipiac had Clinton ahead by seven points. Nevertheless, the Quinnipiac poll has been one of this country’s more reliable polls. We should not dismiss the current poll just because the 2016 one was wrong.
Quinnipiac is a legit polling group. Their last polls in 2016 did show Clinton’s support properly, but didn’t account for the fact that Trump got all the last minute leaners.
The Q poll numbers make sense if looked at using 2016 and 2018 numbers.
In 2016, Trump received 4,685,000 votes in Texas. In 2018, Beto received 4,024,000 votes. And while the Dems may have gotten presidential level participation in 2018 in some areas, they didn’t do so in others, especially San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, which seems to portend that there’s a couple of hundred thousand Dem votes out there for the Dems in 2020. I suspect that the Dems can count on 200,000 more voters in Texas in 2020 versus 2018.
285,000 Texans voted for Gary Johnson in 2016. While these voters came largely from a demographic that is GOP friendly, which are white males, these voters have already decided that Trump wasn’t worth their vote and they’re concentrated in urban/suburban areas. I haven’t seen detail of the educational attainment of those voters, but I strongly suspect that they’re heavily college degreed. At best a jump ball for the GOP. I think that vote goes to the Dems by 2 to 1. The Jill Stein voters? They’re mostly crazy and they’ll find some reason to not vote for the Dem nominee, so I’m just throwing them away, just like they do with their vote. The voters the Dems will get from that group are already included in the 2018 number. In end, the impact of the third party voters from 2016….add 90,000 votes to the GOP total from 2016.
So before we allocate new voters in 2020 and people changing votes from 2016, I calculate the the subtotal as being GOP 4,775,000….Dems 4,224,000. Which shows a total margin for the GOP at 5.5%. And that’s before the Dems get a turnout bump outside of South Texas.
That’s not a safe margin for the GOP by any means. First of all, Texas is growing rapidly in population, and the people moving to Texas are moving to heavily Dem areas. 1,800,000 people will have moved to Texas between 2016 and 2020. Not all will vote, not all will be Democrats. But its not hard to make up a significant amount of the deficit there.
And that’s before vote switchers are taken into account. We know that has happened. And it happened pretty much all in one direction.
I think the Dems have 45% of the vote locked up. A poll showing them with 48% is quite plausible. While the GOP is favored in Texas currently, its no better than a leans/likely GOP at this point.
Howie Katz, once again, NAILS IT!
“Abortion” is the third rail issue for Texas Republicans.
Republicans can’t win statewide without the women’s vote. It’s not calculus, it’s simple math. The numbers don’t lie.
Without Texas, Trump cannot get reelected.
Q-pac poll 2 weeks before the election showing Hillary beating Trump in the popular vote by 7 pts was accurate. On election day 2 weeks later she beat him by 2 pts. That means the gap closed by 5 pts in 2 weeks and after Comey dropped her in the grease. Their poll then, and their poll now was/is accurate.
well let’s just go ahead and call it for the dems now and be done with it since a poll from a liberal university in Connecticut that got it wrong in 2016 is the gold standard of everything
Dan Man, either you cannot or do not want to understand Jerry Patterson’s comment.
you giving me a pass on Tom and JW?
Dan Man, the reason I got on you was because you insisted the poll was wrong in 2016 when Mr. Patterson made it crystal clear that the poll was not wrong.
By the way, the current Quinnipiac poll also shows Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg all ahead of Trump in their match-ups in the other 49 states. Biden leads Trump by as much as 13 points with women picking him by 26 points.
yawn, it occurs the more relevant poll for comparison would the one taken 17 months out from the election…I think they had Hillary up more than 20 on that one didn’t they? still wrong though
Dan Man, I hesitate to reply to your obstinate comment. The poll showing Clinton ahead by a substantial margin 17 month before election day and the poll 2 weeks before election day when it had her ahead by 7 points were both accurate. And so was the poll just before election day which still had her ahead by 2 points because she got 2.9 million more votes than Trump.
You usually come up with some good comments, pal, but not this time. You are obviously trying to disregard the probability that at the present time Trump’s reelection chances do not look good.
It’s still early so if in November 2020 the economy is still robust, the trade wars have ended, the immigration problem has eased and there is no foreign policy crisis, Trump has a good chance of getting to serve a second term. But as the Quinnipiac poll shows, without the women’s vote, Trump is likely to be toast.
California’s illegal alien vote alone accounted for Hillary’s winning the popular vote. I live with a woman that is 100% for Trump. She could change her mind over the next 17 months though. My rants against ethanol may convince her Trump is a loser but then I’d have to tar the entire GOP so maybe I’ll dial it back.
Howie I’ve been around awhile too. EVERY poll had Hillary winning throughout the campaign all the way to midnight on the night of the election. I get great pleasure in watching the agony of her defeat being plastered on every face of all the sycophants that wailed in grief when reality hit.
Demedia has not yet broken the fever of hatred they have for not delivering Hillary the presidency. Lord knows they gave it their biased best. Every liberal outlet is still churning out the same BS they completely missed for the 18 months prior to and the 18 months since the election. And here you are parroting it. Why can’t I have my fun by pointing out your postings mimic that trend?
You’re a pretty good egg too typically. You may notice it’s when you play from the left that I take umbrage.
btw, I think Jerry is still bitter about getting skunked by Patrick and George P, time will heal that wound.
Theres a real danger that GOP has if they actually start believing Trump’s lies about illegals voting. They’ll ignore the real nature of the electorate. Hispanic voting participation is very low and to blame 2916 or 2018 on risible claims of illegal voting will unecessarily focus attention away from the real issue the GOP has, which is a collapse in support for the Republicans by suburbanites, particularly women. This collapse, if not corrected, will cause the GOP in Texas huge problems not only in the Presidential race, but also in the race for the Texas house, and with redustricting as well. For example, if the GOP loses any more suburban voters, how do they redistrict in 2021? Its quite difficult to do so effectively.
Understand that while Trump is really popular with people who identify as Republicans, the percentage of people who identify as Republicans is falling.
If youre blaming 2018 or 2016 on illegal voting, youre ignoring the real challenge.
I vote repub because the alternative is worse. I’m a conservative and don’t identify as a repub. “Hispanic voting participation is very low…” How low Tom? You don’t know And how did the polling of 2016 fail to detect the majority of women voting for Trump? What are you really advocating for Trump to do to keep the women’s vote? Adopt dem policies is my hunch.
I’m curious Howie and Tom, do you have actual concrete ideas on what to do to make Texas more “red”? Aside from vague predictions of doom and pronouncements that we “have to put aside our differences”, what, exactly, do you recommend?
In the meantime, consider that President Trump will be an incumbent running for re-election with a strong national economy (assuming that things don’t radically change in the next year.) If he loses it will be an historic first. And then consider the quality of current Democratic contenders. When the best you’ve got is Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders then you have a real problem. Hillary couldn’t beat Trump – even with the FBI, CIA and State Department carrying her water – and none of these idiots could beat Hillary.
I’m not saying it will be a cakewalk, but you might want to back off your predictions of gloom just yet.
According to Fat Albert “If he loses it will be an historic first.” I guess Fat Albert is too young to have been around in 1980 and 1992 when a one-term President like Trump lost re-election.
Gosh Wayne, you might want to up those reading skills a bit. . . .
Please note the part about a “strong national economy”. I’m old enough to remember the double digit interest rates that Jimmy Carter gifted us with, as well as the recession that 1992 brought. People vote their pocketbooks.
My statement stands.