March 1st, 2023 – A look at the new UT/Texas Politics Project Poll

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:06] Intro: The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. Sir, I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas.

[00:00:17] Intro: The problem is these departures

[00:00:20] Intro: from the Constitution, they have become

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[00:00:24] Intro: at what?

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[00:00:34] Jim Henson: And welcome back to the second reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, today is a special poll, release version of the podcast, I mean, It’s special in the sense that we don’t do it every week, but we do do it now roughly every other month, but still special feels, feels like every week.

[00:00:53] Jim Henson: So on on March 2nd, we released a new statewide poll of Texas Attitudes. Mostly though not entirely pegged to the legislative session that’s now underway in Austin. Uh, I’m very happy to be joined today by my co-conspirators in the poll. Darren Shaw is, I was gonna say Darren Shaw on my left, just to give a sort of little visualization and a, a, a subtle play, or not so subtle.

[00:01:17] Jim Henson: Uh, but Daron Shaw, uh, my friend and colleague is University Distinguished teaching professor. and Frank C. Irwin Chair of State Politics in the Department of Government here at UT Austin. I hear they’re gonna rename the Irwin chair the moody chair. .

[00:01:32] Daron Shaw: I’m just kidding. No, I was gonna say the longer the title, the, uh, the, the less the expertise.

[00:01:37] Daron Shaw: So ,

[00:01:39] Jim Henson: so thanks. Thanks for being here, Daron. Appreciate

[00:01:41] Daron Shaw: it. No,

[00:01:41] Jim Henson: my pleasure, Jim. And on my right, Josh Blank, the research director for the Texas Politics Project.

[00:01:47] Josh Blank: Here I am. I have no names other than that . Here

[00:01:50] Daron Shaw: I am, you know, well, you know,

[00:01:52] Jim Henson: I’ll take a chair. You need a Moody name, A moody. I mean, everybody’s got, everything’s a moody name.

[00:01:56] Jim Henson: There’s Moody. Well, you know, there’s McCombs we’ll come up with after you go to a show at the

[00:01:59] Daron Shaw: Moody. That way. Yeah, exactly. Um,

[00:02:01] Jim Henson: so as I said, the, the poll was focused largely on the legislative session and as a result, You know, we approached it mindful of, of where we are, well, really where we were in the session at the time, we were collecting data that is, you know, we collected in mid February, mid to late February, and, um, You know, things were sort of still getting started and while there’s a lot of coverage of, you know, this bill and that bill, what we were really after was trying to get at the underlying attitudes for a group of people that is the general public.

[00:02:37] Jim Henson: They’re not following the session very closely, which we, you know, the data has, we saw in the data this time and, and have seen in the past. So, you know, we’re trying to. You know, get at the salience of, of policy areas, underlying attitudes, while in some ways keeping our powder dry for the most part on specific proposals, um, till later in the session as we begin to get a, a lit, a better sense of the lay of the land.

[00:03:03] Jim Henson: And there’s some exceptions to that. There are things we know are going on, we ask the, some significant questions, you know, some more specific questions in some ways about public education, little bit about, um, uh, some of the business stuff. But by and large, You know, we were looking at it underlying attitudes.

[00:03:20] Jim Henson: So Josh, could you start by just giving us the, the nuts and bolts and, you know, field dates, et cetera, so people know what we’re, when, when, and what we’re talking about here? Right? Sure.

[00:03:28] Josh Blank: So this is, this is a, uh, a survey of 1200 self-identified registered voters in Texas. We were in the field from February 10th to the 21st.

[00:03:37] Josh Blank: And so, you know, that produces a margin of error for the full sample of plus or minus 2.83%, uh, larger margins of. , you know, for subgroups and uh, and that’s sort of the nuts and bolts. I mean, that, that’s the basic, yeah, I mean just, I guess I’ll just, you know, add a little bit to what you said, which is, you know, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, which I think you would be, if you’re listening to this one, you know, the last couple weeks has been this dis really very much an discussion about what’s going on inside the process.

[00:04:02] Josh Blank: And we’ve been doing this for long enough and some of us longer than others, right. To know that, you know, we’re seeing here having this very in-depth conversation about, you know, early committee hearings that are going on. But we also know studying public opinion, this is not. People are normal. People who don’t like, you know, follow this stuff closely or even work in the process.

[00:04:20] Josh Blank: Right?

[00:04:20] Jim Henson: Yeah. And so let’s, that’s, so that, that points out a good place where we should start, which is let’s look at when, what people are paying attention to. We started kind of the substantive or the, the, the issue part of the survey with questions about. What people have heard about in the news. So talk, walk us through a little bit of that, Josh, and then Darren, I’d like you to kind of respond to like, how you read

[00:04:45] Josh Blank: this.

[00:04:46] Josh Blank: Yeah, I don’t, you know, so basically say, you know, we’re kind of interested first and foremost, and this is something we do. And it’s, it’s, you know, it’s for, it’s almost for more for other people. And for us, it’s a little bit for us, but one of the things is we have these stories that are going on that are huge.

[00:04:57] Josh Blank: You know, I think, again, within this community, it’s like, oh, committee assignments are going on, right? They’re, they’re talking about the. , uh, you know, they’re electing a speaker and there’s an idea inside the process, like, oh, this is like a really big deal. You know, people are fighting about whether they can spend their campaign money on the speaker’s race , and it’s just like, you know, when we ask Texans, like just at, at the broadest level, like, are you paying attention to the session?

[00:05:18] Josh Blank: You know, right now, how close are you following it? We find less than, you know, fewer than one in 10 of any te of any group of Texans says they’re following the legislature extremely closely at this point. Now we know from past sessions it’ll go up over time, right. But starting right now. Ultimately people aren’t really, you know, combing through bills, right.

[00:05:36] Josh Blank: At the same time, you know, the Texas news is competing with a lot of other stories, right? There’s, you know, inflation, there’s the war in Ukraine, there’s the handling of classified documents by. , both the former president and the current president. Right. There’s a debt limit. So one of the things we wanna do early on in the poll is just to get a sense of like, what is the relative levels of attention that the Texans are paying to these issues?

[00:05:58] Josh Blank: Uh, and then are there any sort of interesting differences between them? Right. Is that a good sort of section? Yeah. Yeah. No. So we can, and this is, I mean, like, I’ll just say this, it would easy to say like, oh, you do this, and then you say like, well, then why did you ask him all this other stuff? It’s like, We did this because it actually contextualizes why we ask people other stuff in the way that we ask them, which is we’re not asking about specific policy proposals.

[00:06:17] Josh Blank: They’ve never heard of, they haven’t thought about it. Might not even make it out of a committee, right? We’re asking them about their general ideas about the directions of state government levels of spending, and in some of the big areas. Some deeper questions, right? Where we know there’s gonna be action.

[00:06:30] Josh Blank: So Darren, I

[00:06:31] mean

[00:06:31] Jim Henson: this is like, in some ways this is obvious, maybe, I mean, it’s obvious in a lot of ways in terms of what we know about the stallion of national issues versus local stuff. But I, there were a couple of interesting items in here and, and what did you make

[00:06:43] Daron Shaw: of what we got here? Well, first I’d, I’d like to strongly object to the notion that your audience hasn’t expanded greatly by my presence here at this particular pod.

[00:06:50] Daron Shaw: So, um, that’s right. I hope that is duly noted. Uh, . So if. You know, the listeners take a look at this right now. Shelly’s naughty. Yeah. Yeah. . My, my, my wife and, uh, children I think have, have, probably not all of them. Probably tripled the audience. Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, you get a 50% hit rate amongst your family and you’re doing pretty well, uh,

[00:07:08] Daron Shaw: So, uh, the, the way we’ve sort of situated this, we actually asked people, have you heard about these? Uh, we didn’t say in the national news, but we asked, uh, several questions that are essentially national questions, and then we asked some state questions. And one of the things that I, I find interesting and sort.

[00:07:23] Daron Shaw: Kind of a nerdy perspective, but I think it’s illustrative of bigger points is, is that you’re talking about the national issues and you’re getting, you know, close to two thirds of people. So they’ve been here, they’ve heard something, or a lot I should say about increased prices or inflation. You know, you get well over 50% saying they’ve been paying attention to the war in Ukraine.

[00:07:40] Daron Shaw: The document, uh, you know, controversies are about 50% bubbles, right? About 50, yeah. Then you get to the state stuff and even the top issue, which is abortion scores a little over one in. Right. So, so you’re really talking about, uh, you know, from the top national issue to the top state, state issue, at least in terms of people saying they’re paying attention.

[00:07:58] Daron Shaw: Yeah. It’s about a 30 percentage point drop. Yeah. And frankly, this is in the interest, since we’re all responsible for this poll being slightly. Self-critical. We’re asked about, you know, how much have you heard in the news? And I’m a little dubious about some of these, the, you know, the exact magnitude of some of these numbers.

[00:08:14] Daron Shaw: I think what the audience should do is probably read these numbers as an indication of how much attention people are paying or how salient, as you mentioned, Jim, they think the issue is. Right. Yeah. As opposed to the particular numbers. Like do I really believe that, uh, you know, one in 10 Texas, uh, registered voters are, are really paying a lot of attention to committee assignments in the state legislature?

[00:08:33] Daron Shaw: No. Right. Um, , you know, I think, I think people are, are trying to respond to the pollster. They’re, you know, they’re polite. Um, so, so I’d say. Pay a little less attention to the specific numbers, pay attention to the relative numbers within the battery of state questions, and then the comparison between some of the national issues and state issues.

[00:08:53] Daron Shaw: I think that gives you some insight into the, the psyche of the

[00:08:55] Josh Blank: American voter right now. And I’ll add into that some comparisons between different groups, right? So for example, like, you know, in terms of like we think about like attention to the number of migrants crossing the US Mexico border, unsurprisingly.

[00:09:05] Josh Blank: A lot more, you know, Republicans have, were much more likely to have heard a lot about this than Democrats and you think can see the relative way that different groups are necessarily sort of placing on different issues in terms of, because again, this is, this is goes two ways, right? I mean, part of this, an idea is like this is not a measure of what’s in the news.

[00:09:18] Josh Blank: This is a measure of what people have, a sense of what’s going on out there and what they think they’re hearing about. and you can see, you know, given the sort of bifurcation of media habits and all that kind of stuff, that like different groups of people are hearing about different things at different rates.

[00:09:29] Josh Blank: And that’s sort of what

[00:09:30] Daron Shaw: interesting in, in some sense, it’s, you know, you almost wanna read this as a question of if, if I put all of these things in front of you, which one would you read first? Or which one would you care most about?

[00:09:38] Josh Blank: And you know, and when we analyze, like when I analyze, the first thing I do is I say, let me sort this.

[00:09:43] Josh Blank: The share of people who’ve seen a lot, cuz that’s actually what’s interesting. It’s seen what the rank order is and that’s, I think that’s exactly some more point you’re

[00:09:49] Jim Henson: making. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and, and I think, you know, the, the, the main point of this, I think as we take away right now is the, the real gap between what’s taking up sort of peop, you know, Headspace for people is mostly national.

[00:10:03] Jim Henson: Yeah. Right now. And even, you know, if you look at the, you know, even, you know, Darren mentioned now the top issue in, in Texas was 36% saying that they paid attention to changes in abortion, to abortion laws in Texas. A lot of attention. Yeah. That might be one of the most national stories in the state.

[00:10:20] Jim Henson: Right. And that’s being driven by

[00:10:20] Daron Shaw: Democrats.

[00:10:21] Jim Henson: Right, right. And that’s, yeah, exactly. So, right. Um, so I would urge people to kind of look at that. So, okay. So, you know, we also talked a bit, you know, we’ve already talked a bit about, um, uh, attention to the legislature now in. You know, keeping with the theme of kind of what, where we were at and how we time this, we gave people something that we, we tend to try not to do , although, you know, we do it periodically, which is we provided an open-ended question that tried to focus people a little bit more on the legislature and asked what, and asked people what they thought.

[00:10:53] Jim Henson: In a few words the legislature should prioritize while they’re in session. And it really does underline the degree. You know, it’s a pretty diffuse kind of

[00:11:03] Josh Blank: topic. Yeah, I mean, I, so real quick, I mean, the top issue deemed by people was immigration, some immigration or border of secur security related issue.

[00:11:11] Josh Blank: And that was one in four voters, 24% said this should be the legislature’s top priority. And then after that, no other, uh, Area got more than 10%. Right. And that may sort of sound, I mean, some ways that could sound kind of like, well, what again? They’re like, well, what’s the point of that? It’s like, well, actually the diff you know how diffused that is, is the point.

[00:11:29] Josh Blank: Right? It’s that, you know, it’s not as though at this point in the session, the public is. Calling for something specific. It’s not as though we’re saying, right? You gotta say certain publics are calling for some specific things, but overall, like you don’t look at this and say, this is gonna be an education session, or this session has to be about property taxes.

[00:11:47] Josh Blank: Otherwise they’re not meeting what the voters are asking for. And in fact, you know, property tax, something. certainly gonna be taken on. And 4% of voters said something about property taxes. If we had the 2% who say, who said something about housing, we’re at 6%, we’re at one quarter of the people who said immigration and border security.

[00:12:03] Jim Henson: Right? Yeah. And interestingly, this doesn’t look that different than the m i P state. No, this is

[00:12:08] Josh Blank: pretty much, I mean, I would say this is, this is kind of what you would expect when you don’t. You know, when you don’t give people any sort of constraints, and these are all the, I mean, these are the issues.

[00:12:16] Josh Blank: It’s not as though there were some like, you know, crazy sort of hidden things that kind of came out of this and you say, oh, I didn’t realize that was an issue. I mean, the top issues are immigration.

[00:12:23] Jim Henson: It can be very disappointing to the

[00:12:24] Josh Blank: marijuana of immigration advocates. It’s not the top issue. But if you, but if you look down the, the, the overall list, you know, immigration, border security is at the top 20.

[00:12:32] Josh Blank: Percent. Then you have inflation and the cost of living 8% gun controller, gun safety, 7%, the economy, 6% education, five energy or the grid four, healthcare for property taxes for abortion, and kind of then it just kind of trails off you just cutting. But those are, you know, I mean, that’s not a, that’s a. A bad sweep

[00:12:48] Jim Henson: space.

[00:12:48] Jim Henson: You don’t look at any of those and go, oh, nobody’s been talking at all about any of this. So you, Darren,

[00:12:52] Daron Shaw: you wanna jump in? Yeah, I, I would probably combine inflation cost of living Yep. With the economy. Mm-hmm. , so that’s 8% and 6%. So that, that ends up, if you put those two numbers together, you end up with 14%, which trails only immigration and border security.

[00:13:06] Daron Shaw: So those are the, the two top issues. I mean, just a, a couple of small observations. The first is abortion is offered as an open-ended response by only three. Um, that’s not to suggest that it’s not on people’s minds that it’s not important, but it, it doesn’t score, you know, off the charts. And this has been an interesting conversation both in Texas and nationally about the, the cutting power of abortion, about its residents, particularly with democratic voters.

[00:13:28] Daron Shaw: Um, by the way, this, I don’t mean to suggest that it is not a salient issue because amongst Democrats it scores quite a bit higher. Jess, I don’t remember

[00:13:36] Josh Blank: the particular, this is five, but I have a que I have a question for you actually, but I was wondering, you know, you may, may have the answer to this or not, and if you don’t that’s okay.

[00:13:41] Josh Blank: I was just wondering, you know, I wonder. Because you look at more national polling and stuff and I wonder, you know, in, in. Where, you know, you have Democrats in control of the legislative process. Are Democrats expecting more on abortion than in a state like Texas, where, you know, in some ways the smart democratic play would be, no, don’t touch that.

[00:13:57] Josh Blank: That’s fine. Right? Yeah. Because you’re not gonna get what you want. Right.

[00:14:01] Daron Shaw: Actually, what is interesting right now is it’s a, it’s a re it would be a reasonable hypothesis to say that in states like Texas Yeah. Or states with restrictive abortion laws that have either, you know, been triggered by the, by the Dobbs decision or.

[00:14:13] Daron Shaw: passed subsequently, um, that abortion should be a, a rallying point for Democrats ought to score very high with Democrats. Whereas in states like California or New York that already have permissive abortion laws on the books, right. Um, that abortion shouldn’t be as much of an issue because of the state context.

[00:14:28] Daron Shaw: That’s actually not what we are finding right now. Mm-hmm. and there’s an, an interesting conversation to be had about the nature of the abortion issue right now. Yeah. Um, I. Kind of think it’s a marker issue for women’s rights more generally, particularly for people of a certain generation. . Um, so I’m,

[00:14:45] Josh Blank: I’m gonna tell you right now, encoding these open-ended responses.

[00:14:48] Josh Blank: That was what was crossing my mind a little bit in terms of trying to figure out, looking at the comments where exactly some of these things went. And it would be interesting to go back, actually look at the open ends and, I mean, again, it’s a small sample within those, the whole thing. But just to see some of the demographics there and see how the language might be different.

[00:15:04] Daron Shaw: right. I, I think, you know, there’s two, there’s two obvi, and this is an oversimplification probably, but my working hypothesis would be that, you know, for, for women who came of age during roe, abortion is such an important, you know, issue with respect to their rights, with respect to understanding the party’s positions with respect to women’s rights.

[00:15:20] Daron Shaw: There is, so that’s kind of one group of people for whom this is a, a big issue. The, the other potential group are people. You know, have a self-interest or direct, you know, kind of interest in the abortion issue now. Yeah. And, and to, you know, to be kind of totally practical be women and I guess men too, but of a certain age.

[00:15:38] Josh Blank: Yeah. I’ve been using the term gestational age and every time I say it, somebody bristles. So I try not to say, look like all only do it on podcasts. I can’t say it’s a little, it’s a

[00:15:45] Daron Shaw: little lab. Yeah. I’m, I’m sorry. Hey,

[00:15:46] Josh Blank: let’s shoot fits. Yeah. We’re the color

[00:15:48] Daron Shaw: lab coat fits. We’re always trying. Next week we’ll have Don Lemon on the show.

[00:15:51] Daron Shaw: Yeah, exactly. But my, my sense right now is that it’s actually not showing up as a, as a driving issue for young people. For instance, the way you might have expected, it does seem to be showing up for, let’s, let’s say, uh, men and women between, uh, 45 and 64 years of age. Um, and so that, that’s very kind of slender, but at least suggestive evidence about how this.

[00:16:16] Daron Shaw: Is, is playing. The other thing, just a small comment on the multiplicity of issues, right. That there’s not a, a real focus. This was evident in the 2022 midterms. Yeah. And I, I think people misread it a little bit. That is to say the Democrats didn’t have a, a single rallying Dobbs and abortion got a lot of attention.

[00:16:33] Daron Shaw: Yeah. But there were a lot of smaller issues for Democrats and, and I think they ended up mounting. To something kind of coherent and something that, that did succeed in mobilizing Democrats in a way that we hadn’t quite expected. Um, you also see that on the Republican side too, where it’s, it’s partially immigration and border security.

[00:16:51] Daron Shaw: It’s partially crime, it’s partially, you know, sort of parental involvement in the schools. It’s partially inflation. So on both sides, neither party is really rallied around a single issue. And I, but I don’t think that means that the issues aren’t important or salient right now. I just think they’re awfully diffused.

[00:17:08] Daron Shaw: Well,

[00:17:08] Jim Henson: what I would say about that though is that among Republicans, you know, half said immigration and border security. Right,

[00:17:14] Daron Shaw: right. But it, and nationally that’s,

[00:17:17] Jim Henson: I know there doesn’t mean you’re, they’re always talking about that, but it. It’s a pretty great fallback position if you’re a, it’s

[00:17:22] Daron Shaw: a, if you Republican, it’s a touchdown if you’re a Republican candidate.

[00:17:24] Daron Shaw: I think that’s right. But nationally, I think what you’ll see in Texas is that it overwhelms everything. Right? And we see that in these data nationally, issues like crime and inflation and gas price come up to close to those levels, such that if you’re a Republican, it’s not. National Republic, it’s not obvious what you should be talking, although certainly from some of the conversation early on with some of the Republican wannabes out there that that immigration is a huge part of their rhetoric.

[00:17:47] Daron Shaw: It’s, well,

[00:17:48] Jim Henson: it’s almost like a security blanket, right? I mean, I think their polling is throwing them the same thing that our polling is telling

[00:17:53] Daron Shaw: us. Right. And then, and again, for the listeners, it’s border security as opposed to immigration. There’s not a big conversation about pathway to citizenship or punishing people here.

[00:18:02] Daron Shaw: It’s all about securing the border and dealing with the southern border crisis. You know, kind of mouth when

[00:18:08] Jim Henson: on. Yeah, that’s, you know, and that’s an innovative, we’ve talked about. I mean, that’s sort of innovation that slowly evolved in Texas, I think.

[00:18:13] Daron Shaw: Yeah. Right. Um, Josh, you were gonna say something I

[00:18:16] Josh Blank: thought Yeah, well, I was gonna say, I mean, was as reacting to what you were saying about sort of the, the lack of a, a, a single sort of campaign theme.

[00:18:22] Josh Blank: And it is interesting cuz you know, you know, I’ve studied campaigns in elections with you. You know, and there is sort of like over time in history, you can sort of say like, oh, that campaign was about X or that campaign was about y And it is really interesting thinking even over the. , let’s say, you know, I would even 16 ish years, let’s say maybe, eh, maybe 14 ish years, let’s say, right?

[00:18:41] Josh Blank: I’m trying to think. Like 2000, 2012. Well, it’s a, it’s a range, you know, , but you start thinking about the fact that the idea of like, you know, , uh, not only like at the same time that, you know, sort of Obama and his, you know, coalition of the Ascend and trying to bring people together under like a specific, you know, under kind of a general banner here that brings together these democratic issues, which are again, kind of disparate and all that kind of stuff.

[00:18:59] Josh Blank: And you have to bring all these people together. But I was also thinking about the changes in the media environment too, in the sense that there isn’t a national narrative anymore really, that like people would say, oh, this is what’s going on, you know? Yeah. And I wonder how much that plays into this idea that even or reinforces in the parties, you know, this sort of.

[00:19:14] Josh Blank: Fragmentation both between them and among them because you know, even in, you know, the Republican party, it’s like, you know, Fox News is a, a segment of that electorate. There are more conservative options out there, much more conservative options. There are less conservative options. But like, I mean, to your point, I mean there, there is a little bit more, almost sort of strange, there’s a little bit more.

[00:19:31] Josh Blank: Heterogeneity May in Republicans

[00:19:33] Daron Shaw: it. Yeah. I, I think there used to be, you know, Jim and I, Josh is probably too young to remember this. Yeah. But we remember the 92 campaign and, and it’s the economy stupid. Right. It was all about the economy and I think a lot of us who kind of came of age during that time felt that going into 2022.

[00:19:49] Daron Shaw: Mm-hmm. that, that the. In, you know, inflation and, and rising prices, we’re gonna just absolutely kind of dominate the conversation, and I don’t think that happened. Um, and there are a lot of kind of explanations for why, but even within the, within the broad topic of inflation, there is, to use your phrase, heterogeneity.

[00:20:08] Daron Shaw: That is, well, rising prices meaning what? Meaning healthcare prices, meaning gas prices, meaning grocery prices. And what you saw, actually, we’ve, we’ve done this in a couple of polls we’ve done. If you break it down and say, well, what part of Yeah. You know, rising prices are you feeling the most? Uh, well, Democrats tend to talk about healthcare, um, and prescription drug prices, and Republicans tend to talk about gas prices and, and groceries.

[00:20:31] Daron Shaw: It, it begs the question, you know, are we so polarized? Are partisan views so different? It’s possible to have an election that kind of centers around a single thing, setting aside Donald Trump being that single thing. Right. Which I

[00:20:45] Jim Henson: do think was, you know, yeah. I mean there are things that that lend themselves to broader appeal, but I mean, as we, you guys were having that conversation, I was thinking, you know, polar is, you know, the difference between 92 and now.

[00:20:55] Jim Henson: I mean, the biggest difference, there’s a lot of them obviously, but you know, media environment is one of them, but media environment is part and parcel of polarization and the sorting of the parties. Right, right. So I want to go. The high level. Yeah. To something pretty specific. I mean, one of the interesting things to me about what we saw in these salience issues is, um, you know, the kind of.

[00:21:22] Jim Henson: Uh, you know, the dog that didn’t bark on property taxes. Hmm. Um, cause on one hand, reducing property taxes has, you know, was a central component of most every Republican campaign in the, in the state. Mm-hmm. , you know, from the legislature on up to the governor. Um, it is one of the, the, the items that is preoccupying the discussion in the legislature.

[00:21:46] Jim Henson: And yet, you know, in that open-ended response, You know, Very few people mention property taxes, right? Single digits. Um, 4% of voters. 7% of Republicans, right. You know, so it’s not even that there’s some partisanship hiding in these low top level numbers. Right. Um, now we did. Probe it a bit. You know, we ask people how state taxes impact their personal finances.

[00:22:14] Jim Henson: And when we asked that, a majority said 58% said that property taxes have a major impact. And then when we kind of made people, you know, force people into choice to say, what has the greatest impact on your personal finances, 47% came back with property taxes. So, I mean, in some senses it’s, it’s kind of a validation of the approach.

[00:22:35] Jim Henson: Yeah. In that if you talk to the public, , they’re gonna say, or you, even if you give them some substantial property tax reduction, we’ve pulled on mm-hmm. that in the past. It’s gotta be substantial. People will take it and probably take it happily based on their perception of, of tax burdens, but it’s not driving a lot of attitudes.

[00:22:54] Jim Henson: Doesn’t seem to me. Yeah.

[00:22:56] Josh Blank: But you know, I mean, part of it I think might be, and I’m just sort, you know, thinking about it as I look at this, you know, it’s also kind of what’s available. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of aspects on this point I don’t think we can necessarily get to in this podcast. You know, where you say like, okay, you know, there’s Republican majorities.

[00:23:09] Josh Blank: There’s Republican leadership. Their main focus is going to be the will and desire of Republican voters. The lieutenant governor has said that directly. Right, and saying this is what the majority of the majority party wants in this state. Right. In talking about some of these policies and when you look at property taxes, you know, so you know what’s interesting is they’re just the coalitional dynamics of the two parties really manifest themselves.

[00:23:28] Josh Blank: And I’ll just be real brief, br you know, simple brush here. Republican Party tends to be older, tends to be wider, more likely probably to own homes, democratic Prize, younger. More likely probably to be renters who are not gonna be affected by property taxes directly. And you, that comes out in the numbers because partisanship shouldn’t necessarily affect your tax burden.

[00:23:45] Josh Blank: But 68% of Republicans say property taxes ex have a major impact on their finances. 51% of Democrats, when we say what is the biggest impact, it’s 59% of Republicans say property taxes. 40% of Democrats, 28% of Democrats say the sales tax, right? So if you’re looking for, you know, a nice sweet spot that hits two thirds of your party, Which is kind of where they were in the last session.

[00:24:06] Josh Blank: There aren’t a ton of spaces left. Right. I mean, we could talk about this later, but like they can’t go much further on abortion restrictions. Can’t go much further on gun restrictions without bumping up against, you know, again, elements within their own

[00:24:18] Daron Shaw: party. Yeah. Some lane markers. Right. I, I’d put that Josh’s point in a slightly different way.

[00:24:24] Daron Shaw: At, at, at two levels. Yeah. The first is, you know, there is a leadership quality here. Mm-hmm. . Um, and that is that, that people are responsive to elite conversations. Mm-hmm. and, and it, it strikes me that property taxes are an issue where if, if you touch on it, if, if you play that chord, , um, it’s, it resonates.

[00:24:41] Daron Shaw: It’s gonna resonate, right? You know, it’s, it’s like, you know, what is it? You throw a guitar down the, down the stairs and it’ll play the first four courts of Gloria . Um, you know, if you throw a Republican down the stairs, he’ll , he’ll play the first four courts of property tax reduction, right? Yeah. . Um, and I think there’s a reason for that.

[00:24:56] Daron Shaw: I think, you know, that it does resonate with a particular group, but, but to Josh’s point, here’s how I’d put it slightly differently. Yeah, it’s the same point. But, um, you know, you are looking at issues that, um, nobody’s gonna. basically. Right. And if you talk about property taxes, Republicans are going to love it.

[00:25:12] Daron Shaw: Independents are going to really like it, and Democrats are fine with it. They’re not gonna vote against it. Exactly. And, and that’s not true most likely of, most of these issues. So in that sense, from a, from a practical point of view, we’re not talking about public policy, although I’m interested in this.

[00:25:24] Daron Shaw: Jim, isn’t John Josh’s as well. Um, but from a practical political point of view, it’s kind of sitting there as Jah suggested, just kind of smiling at Republican legislators that, you know, this is, I’m right. , right. Um, you know, this is, you know, we can go back and play the hits and property tax reduction is one of those hits.

[00:25:42] Daron Shaw: It plays well with everybody. It alienates nobody. Um, so you can, you can see why it would be attractive, even if it’s not showing up organically as one of the top one or two issues,

[00:25:52] Jim Henson: right. , you know, as we, as we wind down a little bit, let’s, let’s, let’s do our, uh, kind of round robin here. Uh, let’s start with you Josh.

[00:26:00] Jim Henson: Josh, what in, you know, what that we haven’t talked about was you, did you find interesting? Smaller, large. Okay.

[00:26:05] Josh Blank: I’ll, I’ll go with something kind of small. Uh, you know, in that salience battery of news items we were asking, you know, again, uh, it was pretty long. I think it was about 14 different items, somewhere national.

[00:26:14] Josh Blank: Again, about half were, were stayed maybe a little more. And one of the things we asked. Was, you know, how much they’ve heard in the news about chat G p T, and you know, part of the reason that we put in there is because I, you know, the service, I mean, when we wrote this poll chat, g p t was just in, just everywhere in terms of the way that people were talking on the media.

[00:26:31] Josh Blank: And they’re talking about how this is gonna be either the end or the beginning of all kinds of different industries. Higher education, you know, humanity, policing humanity. . And you know, it’s one of those things where I’m like, you know, I just, it was just, are people like even paying attention to this at all?

[00:26:44] Josh Blank: And the answer is no. And I love that because if you have any sort of thought about the fu, you know what chat G P T is going to do on the future. Just so you know, only 14% of text said that they heard, heard a lot about this in the period, which that was like all anybody was talking about. It wasn’t the bottom of the list, but it was by far the lowest of our national story discussions.

[00:27:00] Josh Blank: And I think it’s just a reflection of the fact that, you know, When you’re talking about hard things and especially kind of, you know, in the media and at that kind of level, it’s important to keep in mind that like people don’t have developed views about like a lot of these technology related things, and a lot of times they’re not even paying any attention to it.

[00:27:14] Josh Blank: So 40% said they’d heard nothing.

[00:27:17] Jim Henson: Yeah. It’s just the way Skynet wants it. , .

[00:27:21] Daron Shaw: Darren, what did you, how about you can, can I go two even though I know we’re in the rapid fire section course? Yeah. We got, we. within the abortion, uh, battery. Uh, what, what Josh and Jim and I have done together is, is kind of offered a different way of thinking about how to measure opinion on abortion.

[00:27:37] Daron Shaw: Um, we know, you know, people think of it as pro-choice, pro-choice, pro-life, or did you oppose Dobbs? Did you support the Dobbs decision? All that’s legitimate. Those sort of self-identification questions and reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision are obviously important ways to measure opinion, but we have always been of the opinion that abortion on, uh, that abortion opinion is much more subtle than nuanced.

[00:27:57] Daron Shaw: And it depends on two things. What are the conditions or the circumstances under which we’re talking about a, a woman’s right to choose. And secondly, what, what’s the timing? and, and both these are relevant for public policy. So we’ve got a battery that I’d encourage everybody to take a look at where we vary, okay, what’s the circumstance?

[00:28:13] Daron Shaw: And it ranges from, you know, a woman’s health is in danger, that is a woman’s life, is in danger all the way to, you know, the woman is married and does not want more children. So the sort of range of conditions. And then we ask, you know, under, you know, when would you permit an abortion from, from. All the way to, at any time during the pregnancy, and I, again, I’m always sort of, uh, interested in the variations.

[00:28:33] Daron Shaw: So just as a for instance, when we ask the condition, uh, when a woman’s health is seriously endangered, only 7%, so that you should never put an abortion under those circumstances. Right. Whereas if you say woman’s woman is married and does not want anymore children, 34. Say that you should not permit an abortion for that particular condition.

[00:28:52] Daron Shaw: At the other end, end of the spectrum, woman’s life is endangered. 43% say at any time during the pregnancy, an abortion should be permitted. Um, whereas if you say, you know, if a woman’s, uh, as Marian does not want more children, only 16% say that, you know, she should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at any point.

[00:29:09] Daron Shaw: Right? So you really get a, a, a thorough range of the variation opinion. Second small thing, um, our, our friend Senator Ted Cruz. I’m interested in the, the percent strongly approving of, of Ted Cruz and the variance across years. There seems to be kind of an interesting, you know, dynamic here where the year heading into a reelection, um, the senator’s numbers dip, um, and he.

[00:29:35] Daron Shaw: You know, so for instance, you know, last time he ran, we’re talking about 2018, um, he ended up, uh, at that point with only, I’m looking at the February, 2018 numbers, which are kind of analogous, getting close to where we are now. And he was at eight, uh, only 22% strongly approved. He’s now at 21% strongly approved.

[00:29:53] Daron Shaw: And just, you know, picking a randomly June, 2021, he was a 31% strongly approved. February 20, 21, 30 3% strongly approved. So, His, his internal support within the Republican party seems to ebb and flow a little bit, and it’s an interesting question of, you know, were these numbers picked up by people in the cruise campaign?

[00:30:12] Daron Shaw: Did it influence his decision? To, to shut down speculation about a presidential run. Um, because I have, I have a sense that if he had been ambivalent about that, um, that these numbers might have been stickier, that is the Republican support, enthusiasm for crews may have been really tough to recover here.

[00:30:30] Daron Shaw: Yeah. Just a thought.

[00:30:31] Josh Blank: No, it’s interesting and there’s two things I think of about just in re response to the cruise thing. I mean, one, it strikes me that he has, you know, he has like surprisingly variable numbers just in general. I mean, I think, you know, other people, a guy with that much, you know. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[00:30:42] Josh Blank: I. People know who he is. Right, exactly. But I think part of it is that, you know, there’s almost no issue that Ted Cruz will not speak on, and that’s not a criticism, but I mean, like, he has his podcast, like he puts himself out there and really like, and he, and he, and he ends up in, in interesting positions on things from time to time and you know, and he’s not someone who’s gonna like, walk that back.

[00:30:59] Josh Blank: You know, if you think about. Most politicians say, would you like to have a really long public record on which people can look to see where you stand? Or would you like to come out and just kind of be a blank slate? I would take a blank slate, you know, if I wanna win. And he’s not a blank slate, and he’s also constantly playing.

[00:31:12] Josh Blank: The other thing that’s interesting, by the way you described that, is it compares so interestingly to to Senator Cornin, right? Yes. Who would love to have Cruz’s numbers, but also, you know, he is the opposite scenario, right? He comes into an election and then his numbers just start to tick up, tick up, tick up, tick up, and then the election ends and he goes back down.

[00:31:27] Josh Blank: Right. And it’s so, it’s, so it’s interesting. I mean, just to see those, those internal state dynamics with the senator, because they are so different.

[00:31:34] Daron Shaw: Right. And the disapproved numbers are pretty, not entirely, but pretty consistent. This is the core of Democrats out there who do not like Cruzs and do not like corn.

[00:31:41] Daron Shaw: Yeah. That’s not where the movement comes,

[00:31:41] Josh Blank: that’s not where the movement comes from

[00:31:42] Daron Shaw: though. That’s exactly, it’s not, you’re right. Exactly. It’s all within Republicans. It’s, you know, are Republicans jazzed about their incumbent senator or are they not jazzed about their incumbent senator? And and you’re right, it peaked in 2022.

[00:31:53] Daron Shaw: I think people’s partisan juices get flowing and now the election’s. sessions in play, they’re back in congress. Republicans, you know, at least control the house. And I think baggage accrue to the incumbent party a little bit. And you start offending people with actual policy positions and Yeah. You know?

[00:32:09] Daron Shaw: Yeah. Uh, you know, the,

[00:32:12] Jim Henson: there’s an, it’s, it’s, it’s an endless source of, of precious metal. My, you know, of or to mine for precious metal, you know, comparing the two Texas senators and, you know, I’m not, I’m not familiar enough with the. You know, I mean, how could I be, I don’t think, but with the dynamics in, in many other states, but the one here is really pretty fascinating.

[00:32:31] Jim Henson: It really is. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a study in contrast in so many different ways that it’s

[00:32:36] Daron Shaw: hard to know. We know Jim Lean on it and Josh, it’s interesting that it, it weirdly kind of encapsulates the, what I would suggest are somewhat perverse incentive. In contemporary politics cuz you’ve got Coron on the one hand who who seems to be focused on doing his job holds key positions for the Republican party and in the Senate.

[00:32:53] Daron Shaw: And you’ve got Cruz who, um, you know, is very visible on social media and in the media generally. Um, and it is in fact Cruzs who. Is more popular amongst Republican partisans and is the focal point of attention and has, you know, already run for president. And then poor John corn’s over there, just passing

[00:33:10] Josh Blank: gun legislation and taking a hit in his numbers.

[00:33:12] Daron Shaw: That’s right. Just right. Just doing, you know, his work and doesn’t seem to get much, uh, much credit in, I like the theme

[00:33:19] Jim Henson: of perverse inside in that a lot actually. So, you know, I I, I’m torn by a couple of different things. So Darren, you took two. I’m gonna take two. So one, and we can, since we’re on the theme of.

[00:33:31] Jim Henson: Actually, I’m gonna do this the other way to go back to state stuff. I mean, I, I, there’s a lot that we haven’t talked about and it, we will be mining this in, in the podcast for the next couple of

[00:33:39] Daron Shaw: weeks.

[00:33:39] Josh Blank: Loves plug, plug, uh, plug for the public education numbers in here. Cause we have a lot in here on public education.

[00:33:44] Josh Blank: That’s what I was, as we say,

[00:33:44] Daron Shaw: I was. Oh, I thought I was that. No, no, go ahead. Yeah, we’ll be feeding off this carcas, feeding off

[00:33:49] Jim Henson: this carcas for a while. So I’m looking at these public education numbers and, and we will be mining these a lot more going forward. But, um, you know, we gave people a range of, this is one of the areas where were a little bit more specific.

[00:34:00] Jim Henson: We gave them a large set of possible issues, asked them to rate the importance and then rate the one they thought was most important. for the legislature to address in the session and the rankings were pretty interesting. I, I, you know, look, not surprising, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of spread here, as there are is, was inevitable probably given the, the number of issues we gave people.

[00:34:22] Jim Henson: The complexity of the issue. Number one response was school safety, 29%. Second teacher pay 21% curriculum content, 17%. And then we went down. Under single figures, but the two competing at the top of the single digit, uh, the single digit results were parental rights at 9%. And then voucher educational savings percent, uh, accounts or other school choice legislation, um, at 8% Now.

[00:34:52] Jim Henson: That’s a very interesting kind of glimpse of the fight going on in public education, both at the policy level in the legislature, but also at the political level in things we’ve talked about in here before, and you kind of alluded to it in some indirect way. I think, Darren, in terms of the recoding of pub, the public education issue among Republicans raises this issue of.

[00:35:14] Jim Henson: Issue ownership, et cetera. And this is another, you know, issue where vouchers or, you know, some kind of school choice legislation very high on the Lieutenant Governor’s and the governor’s agenda, seemingly not nearly so high to put it gently on the house agenda being promoted by the speaker of the house, stayed feeling.

[00:35:34] Jim Henson: So these numbers are, are, are an interesting reflection of what’s going on in that. So I would put that on the table. And then the other thing frankly is, you know, as, as. You know, I had to honestly explain to somebody why we did this, Josh and, and Darren and I kind of didn’t have much more to say other than what, because it seemed kind of interesting.

[00:35:54] Jim Henson: And that was, I gave a better answer than that. But at the end of the day, it’s kind of, and that was the favorability rating for Ron DeSantis in Florida. Yeah. And DeSantis, you know, favorability ratings. Come up. You know, on one hand, you know, you can look at this glass, half bull glass, half empty on one hand, you know, he comes in below Greg Abbott, below Donald Trump in his favor, favorability ratings in the state.

[00:36:20] Jim Henson: But he is very well known in Texas. Um, you know, if you then flip that and look at the number of, of the. The share of people that don’t have an opinion of him. It’s about 22%. That’s comparable to about where the Lieutenant Governor is. It’s better than Senator Cornin. And so, you know, it’s interesting that Governor DeSantis kind of, you know, political of offense, you know, offensive that’s going on right now.

[00:36:47] Jim Henson: He’ll be in Texas This’s Friday, he’s got a book coming out that’s getting a lot of attention. He’s seen right now, at least as the. primary challenger to, to tr to Donald Trump for the nomination. Um, it’s, it’s a pretty

[00:37:02] Daron Shaw: interesting item. Uh, the public education stuff is interesting. We don’t wanna neglect that as we’re sort of winding down here.

[00:37:08] Daron Shaw: But the DeSantis stuff is interesting. There was a, an interesting piece, uh, I think that Nate Cohen did. When I say piece, there’s actually a figure from the piece that showed, uh, the current support in national polls for Trump, which is around 44%. And DeSantis, which is in the low thirties. That, that both of those numbers, each of those numbers suggest the candidate’s going to win the nominat.

[00:37:28] Daron Shaw: In other, in other words, there are very few cases when you had a candidate polling over 30% at this stage of the contest and that candidate did not go in, go on to win the nomination. So, which is ironic cuz. One of those candidates is not going to win the nomination? Possibly both. Um, but I, I think it speaks to this, you know, it’s interesting.

[00:37:48] Daron Shaw: Not only did DeSantis command an enormous amount of tension in 2022, uh, from amongst Republicans, but the democratic media establishment went after him hard all year. So the fave unfaves numbers here largely reflect the fact that Democrats know who he is too. Yeah, that’s a good point. And, and, and Don.

[00:38:06] Daron Shaw: You know, and have decided, okay, he’s a Republican and we don’t like him very much. Um, I think DeSantis numbers look more like a Republican candidate though, as opposed to Trump. in Texas. In other words, I, I think Trump always had some ambivalence, uh, amongst Republicans in Texas. They ended up voting for him, but his numbers were, as we’ve committed several times, he underperformed an average Republican candidate in the state of Texas both times he ran mm-hmm.

[00:38:30] Daron Shaw: Um, I don’t necessarily see that for DeSantis so far. And there’s an interesting primary dynamic right now though, which is. If you’re one of the other Republican candidates, DeSantis is a much more tempting target, despite the fact he doesn’t have as much of the vote. Um, it’s unclear where his supporters would go.

[00:38:48] Daron Shaw: If DeSantis were to falter, Trump’s supporters would go to DeSantis. So if your Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley or Tim Scott, or you know, anybody, um, you know, if you mess up Des you know, if you mess up DeSantis. It’s possible to get his supporters. If you mess up Trump, first of all, you run the risk of getting trumped.

[00:39:07] Daron Shaw: Um, but secondarily, you may only be helping DeSantis. So there there’s this interesting dynamic where the number two guy seems to be the one attracting most of the fire. And you know, this might come under the heading of his Donald Trump, the luckiest candidate ever to run in the Republican. You know, primary context, but, um, but anyway, we, we’ve got, you know, 16 months or however long to kind of watch

[00:39:28] Jim Henson: this unfold.

[00:39:28] Jim Henson: Yeah. We didn’t, obviously we didn’t test all of the Republican cases Exactly. Candidates. Exactly. Which I had to explain, but I mean, DeSantis to my mind is in a fairly singular position right now. Yes. I

[00:39:37] Josh Blank: mean, I think the point in the political Yeah. And I think the point to make just, you know, from the public meeting like this is unusual.

[00:39:43] Josh Blank: you know, we’ve done, you know, and we have to go back and look at some of our old stuff. But I, you know, in terms of, you know, looking, going into Republican primaries or, or democratic primaries, where we have asked people attitudes about, Out-of-state politicians and even out-of-state governors and senator and other people, and it’s not, in my recollection, it’s very unusual to see someone, you know, again, an out-of-state politician run with, look with numbers, look like a former president or the current sitting governor.

[00:40:06] Josh Blank: Well, and the,

[00:40:06] Jim Henson: and the cycle looks so different. This, I mean, you know, I was going back as in sort of doing some thinking about this and, you know, and in our February, 2015 poll mm-hmm. comparable point in the cycle. You know, we were already polling the primary race because everybody and their brother and sister mm-hmm.

[00:40:28] Jim Henson: were in the Republican primary. I mean, we have one of those primary trial ballots in our February, 2015 poll that’s got 20 people in another. The, the, the 12 or 15 candidates that were in there is just trying to figure out who knew who anybody was. And the only person, and again, it’s not a good direct one-to-one comparison, but interestingly enough, the person that seemed to like stick out.

[00:40:49] Jim Henson: Other than the Texas candidates in that race, obviously Cruz and Perry were in it at that point, right?

[00:40:54] Daron Shaw: Uh, with Scott Walker. Yeah. And that’s Walker is, yeah. Walker is the,

[00:40:59] Jim Henson: and Walker’s the comparison people are trying to make, somebody wrote a big piece about, yeah, there was a big

[00:41:02] Daron Shaw: piece of Walker Notis, you know, the historic and you go broke with historical analogies.

[00:41:07] Daron Shaw: But, but the ones that kind of come to mind most readily, one is a Republican one that’s Reagan. Um, in 76 where you’ve got two, you know, an incumbent president, but, but two dominant candidates. The one that actually might be better though is 2008, where you have Hillary Clinton, and then now DeSantis is at a position Barack Obama did not get to until the fall of 2007, but a front running candidate with a lot of baggage.

[00:41:34] Daron Shaw: Very controversial, um, being challenged by someone who is not the heir to the throne, but you. Seems to have emerged from amongst a variety of other candidates. The other candidates do not seem to have gotten the memo on this, and so they’re still in the race. . Right. Um, we’ll see how it plays out. Yeah. But, but you know, this winnowing of the field could be very interesting to watch.

[00:41:58] Daron Shaw: I’m not predicting DeSantis kind of survive. He could get. You know, death by a thousand cuts and could be brought down. On the other hand, you, you could have a two candidate contest that emerges pretty quickly and there’s a nice line by Tom Bevin, I think was, was asked about this and about who’s getting in.

[00:42:15] Daron Shaw: And he said, I’m actually more interested in who gets out than who gets, in other words, do Republicans. Can’t challenge Trump or DeSantis successfully fold their tents and go away. Or do they stick in it? And the one difference between 2008 and 2024 is the incentives to go away aren’t as great because the fundraising has changed so much.

[00:42:35] Daron Shaw: Right? Yep. You know, but we got a lot of time to talk

[00:42:38] Jim Henson: about and, and perceptions of what’s going on in the democratic side, I think. Yes. So, yeah, absolutely. So I, I think with that, we need to give up studio. Darren, thanks for being here. Always a pleasure. John. Jim, Josh, thanks for providing balls and balance and your insight,

[00:42:52] Daron Shaw: fair and balance.

[00:42:53] Daron Shaw: That’s Josh Blank . There you go. Mm-hmm. . Yep. Always. Hey, you gotta write that down. Oh, wait, I got my mug over here. Uh, thanks

[00:42:59] Jim Henson: very much to, uh, our staff in, uh, in the audio studio, in the liberal arts development studio at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, again, the poll, which was just released, you’ll, uh, is available in multiple forms, uh, broken down in lots of different ways at the Texas Politics Project website.

[00:43:20] Jim Henson: That’s Texas politics.utex.edu. Um, lots more analysis. Thousands of graphics, uh, summary documentation, data set, the whole shebang, uh, at our website. So please, uh, go to the website and look at this more. We’ll be back breaking down a lot more this next week. We’ll follow up on the Education Point, drill more down into some of the legislative politics here on next week’s second reading podcast.

[00:43:47] Jim Henson: So thanks for listening and we’ll.

[00:43:55] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.