[00:00:00] Jim: Welcome to the Second Reading Podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:05] Intro: The Republicans were in the Democratic Party, because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is, these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm.

[00:00:24] Intro: At what point Must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room

[00:00:34] Jim: And welcome back to another second reading podcast I’m, jim henson director of the texas politics project at the university of texas at austin uh happy to be joined on campus today by Darren shop professor of government here at the university of texas.

[00:00:47] Jim: Thanks for making it darren always a pleasure Um, that’s a nice thing to say.

[00:00:51] Yeah.

[00:00:52] Jim: And Josh Blank, Research Director for the Texas Politics Project. Uh, it’s a fine pleasure. Okay. Well, [00:01:00] you know, that was a setup, I suppose. Something of a pleasure. So, so Darren is joining us for our customary discussion of The latest UT Texas Politics Project poll, which we released earlier this week, and we’re recording a little later in the week on Friday for scheduling, for scheduling reasons, um, the poll was conducted April 12th to 22nd.

[00:01:20] Jim: We released a couple of days ago on Wednesday. And I think, you know, today is customary, and we have Darren with us, we’ll focus mostly on the election rated, uh, election related results. Um, with all the caveats about the fact that it’s only April, et cetera, we’ll just get that, you know, on the plate in front of everything.

[00:01:39] Jim: Um, um, so, you know, we’ll definitely have some discussion about where we are in the cycle and how to interpret polling at this point in time or how not to, um, But let’s just dive into it. Let’s start with what we saw in the presidential matchups. Josh, why don’t you give us a rundown? And, you know, we, we tested this two ways and, um, why don’t you kind of tell us what we found at the [00:02:00] top of the lines on that, Josh?

[00:02:01] Josh: Yeah, sure. So we asked a trial ballot, you know, for, for the presidential level, we do did both a five way race, including both obviously Trump and Biden, but also, uh, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein. We also did a two way, uh, head to head matchup between Biden and Trump. Not because we think it’s necessarily useful on its own, but it’s useful in the sense of the trend, because we have a lot more of these two ways going back even into the last election cycle.

[00:02:25] Josh: It’s a little bit, you know, just for comparison’s point. Overall on the five way match, uh, uh, Trump had an 11 point lead leading Biden 40. I’m sorry. No nine point lead. My apologies nine point Leading 45 to 36 with rfk eight, uh stein and west both at two points two percent each Uh, the two way matchup is pretty close to that and that’s a plus eight for trump at 48 with biden at 40 Um, you know, I mean that’s the jumping off point, right?

[00:02:52] Josh: I mean, we can dig into a lot of different parts There’s a lot to talk

[00:02:55] Jim: about in terms of you know discussion of Uh, of key subgroups and what’s going on here. But [00:03:00] let’s, you know, overall, Darren, what did you make of this? I mean, other than that, to my mind, not, not very surprising.

[00:03:05] Daron: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s the pollsters dilemma, which is, uh, on the one hand, you’d love to have a striking finding that nobody else has uncovered.

[00:03:13] Daron: Um, on the other hand, when you find a, Something striking and outstanding. You’re immediately suspicious that you’ve done something wrong. Um, and, and this is in the former category. This is a, I think a pretty plausible result. Trump by eight in the two way, nine in the, um, the three, the five way. I think there’s some, some interesting things here.

[00:03:30] Daron: I think, you know, we’ve been asking the five way, um, a lot in our national polls. Uh, there’s a lot of variance across the States as to whether you’re going to get a two way, a three way, a four way or a five way, I think in Texas, it’s plausible that you’ll end up. Getting at least four, probably five candidates.

[00:03:46] Daron: That’s a, that’s kind of the residue of Ross Perot’s effect in 1992, where he directly challenged the Texas, uh, ballot access laws. And, uh, we still have something akin to a sore loser law. Um, and, and please correct me if I’m [00:04:00] wrong, but my understanding of the law is that, uh, in order to qualify as independent candidate, you have to wait until the runoff elections.

[00:04:06] Daron: And then you need, I believe it’s a hundred thousand, but it could be more. Um, but I believe it’s 100, 000 signatures of registered voters who did not vote in the primary. So when I say it’s akin to a sore loser law, Um, it’s basically designed to prevent somebody who lost the runoff from then turning around and parlaying that support into an independent bid.

[00:04:26] Daron: Otherwise, you know, what, what’s the purpose of a runoff? Um, Now, third party and independent candidates have complained about this for a while, but at any rate, I, I suspect it won’t be too difficult for if RFK wants to run as a third party or as an independent candidate to meet that requirement. On the other hand, I’ve also heard from the people in the.

[00:04:45] Daron: Inside the Kennedy campaign. I’ve actually read reports. It’s not like I know anybody inside the Kennedy campaign. If you’re out there, please contact me But that they’re interested in actually qualifying as a third party candidate in the state of Texas because it’s easier Actually to get on [00:05:00] the ballot that way.

[00:05:00] Daron: So my assumption is he’ll probably qualify. What is it like the Texas? Independence party or something like that. It’s got a it’s got a cool sounding name Um, but at any rate, so what’s interesting, just at the time, we got a thousand interesting things just in the presidential, but, uh, you know, if you look at the difference between the two way and the five way, Trump goes down three points from 48 to 45, Biden goes down four points from 40 to 36, which is pretty close to what you’re seeing in the national numbers.

[00:05:26] Daron: Um, there’s a lot of inconsistency into who is helped or hurt relatively by the inclusion of RFK and, and West and Stein. I don’t think there’s a consensus on that. I’ve, in the statewide polls I’ve been doing, we’ve seen different patterns in different states. Sometimes a different pattern in the same state at time A to time B.

[00:05:45] Daron: Um, you know, I, I do think it’s interesting. One of the conventional wisdoms out there right now is that Trump has a ceiling. of about 47, 48 percent nationally. So I thought it was interesting that he bumps up against that even here in Texas. So on the one hand, I think [00:06:00] the numbers are pretty encouraging for Trump.

[00:06:02] Daron: Um, and we’ll talk about, I think there is even more room for encouragement if you look at some of the underlying numbers.

[00:06:08] Jim: The only thing I would add to that, the Kennedy thing is interesting is that we did do a fave unfave on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. If you look at the, if you look at the Kennedy in the five way, he takes, I think, slightly more from Democrats than Republicans, but it’s statistically pretty equal.

[00:06:23] Jim: It’s like six and eight or something like that. Yeah, I

[00:06:25] Josh: think that’s right. But, but overall, you know, uh, in terms of views of RFK, they’re more positive among Republican voters in Texas than Democrats. Right, that’s what I was going

[00:06:32] Jim: to say, that the five way, His, and in fact, you know, what I was emphasizing is the unfave among Democrats is high.

[00:06:37] Jim: It’s about a little over 50%, and I think 41 percent of that is very unfavorable. So there’s not a lot of room to grow there, I don’t think, on the Democratic side for him.

[00:06:49] Daron: There’s also a sense on the Democratic side that this guy is a spoiler. This guy’s going to hurt us. I don’t think there’s that view on the Republican side.

[00:06:56] Daron: I think there’s a sense of kind of curiosity. And, and if you [00:07:00] hear RFK’s message, it’s, it’s a populist message in a lot of ways, anti Big Pharma, suspicions of government that I think is going to resonate with, you know, these, the MAGA Republicans as opposed to the establishment Republicans.

[00:07:13] Josh: Yeah, you know, you were mentioning, uh, you know, Trump’s ceiling here, you know, in this election cycle.

[00:07:17] Josh: And what I thought was really interesting and, you know, one of the benefits of us having like, you know, 65 statewide polls going back, it’s like, Quite a while now as we can go back and look at this matchup and I’m looking at the two way just because it’s comparable, you know, back in 2020 and it’s interesting because I think, you know, these results come out and there’s a sense of, you know, and I think we’re a little caught up in to sort of, you know, what are Biden’s, you know, where’s he, where’s he, you know, Where is he weak or where is he weaker than we expect or where might, you know, he need to do better.

[00:07:44] Josh: Same thing with Trump. I mean, there’s less of that with Trump because his support is so rock solid, really, you know, where he has it. But when I went back and look to say, Hey, what was going on in February, April of 2020 and you had, you know, Trump leading Biden, you know, 47, 43 in February, [00:08:00] 49, you know, 44 in April.

[00:08:02] Josh: And so for all the talk about, you know, sort of, you know, Biden kind of falling off a cliff, you know, Trump goes from, you know, plus five to plus eight and it’s still sitting at 48, 49%, you know, four years later.

[00:08:13] Daron: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a sort of a hors d’oeuvre to the deep dive we’re going to do. I would say if you showed me the internals of this poll and asked me how the democratic candidate, Was doing.

[00:08:24] Daron: I would say it’s a disastrous poll. And yet not that far down in a very red state. And I think it speaks to the weakness of the Republican candidate in a lot of

[00:08:35] Josh: ways. Let me ask you that. I mean, that’s an interesting, you know, take because I mean, it is disastrous. And, you know, and a part of this is like, you know, I will let, let me set the table.

[00:08:42] Josh: Okay. Okay. Let me set the table. Cause I want to see how, I want to hear how

[00:08:46] Daron: strongly you want to go with this argument when I, well, you didn’t even know what my argument, I was just going to ask a six percent defection. Amongst, uh, Republicans, uh, amongst Democrats, 3 percent amongst Republicans. Amongst independents, 39 Trump, 15 Biden.[00:09:00]

[00:09:01] Daron: Amongst African Americans, Biden has a 61 point lead compared to an 83 point lead in the exit poll after 2020. Uh, the Hispanic number is about even after a plus 12 Biden number. Last time around amongst, uh, those under 30, uh, last time around Biden won by 35. This time he’s leading by eight. Um, Trump has a 20 point, uh, 28 point edge amongst seniors in our survey, a 41 point edge amongst those with less than a high school education, a 46 point advantage amongst rural voters.

[00:09:30] Daron: I just think these are disastrous numbers for some. I don’t see a map. And yet, as I said, I’m, I’m open to the case. I’m actually perplexed as to how he’s only down when he’s down, right?

[00:09:41] Josh: Well, this, this is, I think this is, you know, what’s kind of interesting here is that, you know, in, in the grand scheme of things, you know, you run through all those numbers.

[00:09:47] Josh: And the first point I want to make is that he lost in 2020. It wasn’t like he won by how much, by five points, five and a half. Yeah. And I understand that, but I’d also say, so I’m gonna take that. I’m gonna take the fact that what you started with, [00:10:00] Jim, that we’re sitting here in April. And when I look at the numbers, right, and I look at Hispanic numbers, or let’s say, for example, African Americans are a really good example.

[00:10:07] Josh: You know, he’s sitting in the two way at 7514. He was at 7416 in April of 2020. Those numbers climbed up in the summer. And then, you know, you know, But in the early fall, right? Similar among some of these other groups, right? I mean, his numbers are not super far off in terms of, you know, where democratic enthusiasm was and, you know, this time in 2020, and then you see the summer pick up the campaigns.

[00:10:30] Josh: And so first

[00:10:30] Daron: small correction, democratic support, not democratic enthusiasm,

[00:10:33] Josh: right? Support. Sure. Right. Okay. And so what I’m wondering is, you know, I’m a little reluctant to, you know, take these numbers because it’s April and, and jump sort of way out ahead and say, Oh boy, like, let’s see what, you know, this is, this is huge prompts for buying.

[00:10:47] Josh: Because I think, you know, ultimately we talk about this time campaign activation. But to you, I mean, one of the questions is, does that work in this election? I mean, we talk about, you know, campaign effects, you know, and just to summarize real quick, there’s one, you know, this is, I think I’m going to bastardize this and [00:11:00] it’s very simple.

[00:11:00] Josh: I don’t think people are still arguing against campaign effects. I hope not since I left. I You know, a little bit of that. Okay. But the argument used to be, you know, campaigns don’t matter because ultimately if you look at the economy, you look at who’s in the White House, the party of who’s in the White House, you look at, you know, for partisanship of the electorate, maybe a couple other little ingredients, you get pretty close to figuring out who’s going to win an election.

[00:11:18] Josh: And so the argument then becomes, what are campaigns even doing? A lot of scholars, including Darren here, have done a lot to show the campaigns do a lot. But we are sitting here in April with two candidates who have almost, you know, 100 percent name recognition running in a race that’s being run before.

[00:11:33] Josh: How do you see the campaigns playing into this or not? Because the way you’re talking right now about these results, it almost assumes a little bit of a fixed like this is where it is. Well,

[00:11:43] Daron: that’s a really important point to make. Um, but I also think the other point you made against the important point is an important point to make, which is, yeah, it’s April.

[00:11:53] Daron: Um, you know, support is supposed to be loose in April, especially amongst voters that aren’t yet [00:12:00] engaged or groups that tend to have a lot of supporters who aren’t all that engaged or enthused right now. And I, I’m actually in that camp. So I’m, I’m with you. Um, but when I look at the poll, maybe the better way to say it is, boy, he’s got a lot of work to do.

[00:12:12] Daron: He’s got a lot of work to do. And that’s a, and I should point out, like, again, with what Josh and Jim are saying, this is Texas. So, you know, getting to a three point loss would be a huge win. For, for Joe Biden here. Um, but, but that point you raised about, We’ve already had a Trump administration and now we’ve had a Biden administration.

[00:12:29] Daron: And so the, the tricky thing with the 2020 comparison, of course, is that at that point, you know, you could put everything into, boy, look at what Trump has done. We’re going to do better. But now you got a four year record to defend. And, and those constituencies we’re talking about younger voters, Hispanics, African Americans seem to be at this stage, the least enthused about that record.

[00:12:53] Daron: Now, that’s what a campaign is supposed to do, supposed to focus on the comparison. And I know the Biden campaign has made a lot of, you know, made a lot of [00:13:00] noise about, we’re going to shift the focus to Trump. We’re going to shift the focus to Trump. Um, I think that’s totally correct. Although I would say this is more of a subject of appraisal.

[00:13:10] Daron: It needs to be more than, you remember how terrible was under Trump, right? You actually have to paint a narrative and, and it’s not clear to me necessarily that they are. I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’m going to be doing a compelling job. Well, I mean, there’s

[00:13:24] Jim: a couple of things going on. I mean, one, you know, and this happens when you’re the president.

[00:13:29] Jim: I mean with Trump, you know, the pandemic, you know, and with Biden, I mean, they’re having their own sort of fires to put out, you think that I think is, you know, uh, kind of a problem. And there’s just, you know, the strange thing about the economy that we’ll get to, um, you know, but I, I, you know, I also, I’ve You know, I’m also struck by something that, you know, we’re in a position where we always have to do this, I think, which is particularly in the, in the ethnic subgroups and to my memory, particularly among African [00:14:00] American voters, um, They all, they tend to under poll the final Democratic vote, you know, going in.

[00:14:08] Jim: Because I’ve had, you know, we had a result similar to this and I was telling Josh this and this is a terrible recollection and I, I can’t remember what race it was, but I, it was either 2016 or 2020 where we were getting numbers, you know, the, the, I think the, the black Democratic, the Democratic. Vote for the Democratic candidate was maybe a little higher than this, but it was something that you noticed, right.

[00:14:28] Jim: That didn’t look like the exit polls. I remember going back and kind of checking that out and it’s pretty characteristics. It’s, it’s pretty common that the polling at this point, particularly among African Americans and to a lesser extent among Latinos, you know, just, just underperforms what they actually see and what we actually see in the, in the exit polls.

[00:14:49] Daron: Right. I And that doesn’t mean it’s not happening this time, but we have

[00:14:53] Jim: seen that pattern.

[00:14:54] Daron: To, to employ an overused phrase, that’s true until it’s not.

[00:14:57] Jim: Yeah.

[00:14:58] Daron: And what I think is a little, [00:15:00] what’s pretty interesting right now is the extent to which you look at these numbers and you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:05] Daron: African American women are not going to go to Trump, you know, and we’re only talking about a few, but, but even so, you know, he’s not getting 20, he’ll get six. And that’s the question. And I’m, I’m actually very open to, I could be argued into either those things. I have a professor. So you mentioned

[00:15:21] Jim: African American women, but I think, you know, I think what we’ve said, no, it’s men, even you would look as African American men is the question.

[00:15:27] Jim: Right.

[00:15:27] Daron: Right. No, that, that’s right. And you’ve seen probably you guys both saw that there’s an ad going up from the Trump campaign in Georgia today, targeting African American men. Um, you know, so it’s, but it’s, I think the, the point I’d make is these subgroup movements are fascinating and I don’t think there’s any serious analysts of politics right now who.

[00:15:43] Daron: Isn’t basically, uh, has not basically come to the realization that there is a realignment of sorts going on as a question about whether and the extent to which African Americans or Latino voters are actually moving in appreciable numbers. So is it a small R [00:16:00] realignment or is it a large R? realignment and, and that, that we don’t know.

[00:16:03] Daron: And there are all sorts of polling questions. I’m a little suspicious, you know,

[00:16:07] Jim: and, and whether, and whether race is the most salient race and ethnicity, the most salient pieces driving that.

[00:16:12] Daron: Oh yeah. I mean, just so everybody knows, I mean, what we’re really talking about getting down in the weeds is, is there a, a class realignment within the African American and Latino communities, you know, is it lower status?

[00:16:25] Daron: Less well educated Latinos and African Americans who look back on the Trump years, especially the economic times, with some nostalgia and, you know.

[00:16:33] Josh: Well, you know, I would say, but I mean, what I’m kind of, I guess, a little hesitant. I’m not resistant to the argument because I kind of just want to see more data.

[00:16:41] Josh: Just again. It’s April, you know, and just looking at the trends right now, you know, I think I just wonder if this, you know, I look at these numbers and I think when I look at them in total, you know, overall, overall, they’re not so far off where we were last time. And I’m wondering how much of that you [00:17:00] would say is beyond just the effects of incumbency, right?

[00:17:02] Josh: You know, by, I mean, you’re kind of, I mean, you’re making a case that people are, I don’t think you’re really making this case, but you’re brushing up against it, that people are taking the four years of Trump, taking the four years of Biden and making, you know, an informed comparison of the two and then saying, you know what, I’m moving this way.

[00:17:18] Josh: I’m more of the sort of thought that people generally tend to forget, you know, the prior administration. And that right now it seems like, you know, if with Biden, you know, in charge of the economy, the border and foreign policy, there’s a lot of. Negativity to hang on the incumbent. What I’m wondering is, is, you know, once Trump starts campaigning, once the Democrats start spending, you know, the boatloads of money, you know, they’re collecting to sort of, you know, remind people about Trump’s presidency, you know, what’s that going to look like?

[00:17:44] Josh: And I don’t mean are people going to shift? Not at all, but I just mean, you know, are we going to start to see? Black Democrats, you know, expressing support for Biden and higher numbers. Are we going to start seeing young people shifting back a little bit over? Because yeah, you know, he’s not doing well in this poll with 18 to [00:18:00] 29 year olds, but he did well in the prior two polls.

[00:18:02] Josh: So as far as like, we’re not really on a trend line at this point until we kind of get a little bit further down.

[00:18:06] Daron: We need, you know, the, the large. point is that we need more data. We have now, I believe, two or three polls in which we’ve asked the ballot question, presidential ballot question,

[00:18:15] Jim: the five, the five or the, I mean, we’ve got up to three, we’ve got at least three that we’ve done the head to head.

[00:18:20] Jim: Right.

[00:18:20] Daron: So we’re, we’re beginning to get enough. And, and, you know, just so everybody knows, we’re talking about, you know, in the case of African Americans, we’re talking about, you know, eight, nine, 10 percent within the state of Texas with Latinos, we’re talking about, you know, 18 to 24%, depending a little more on the registered voters and the RV file higher.

[00:18:36] Daron: Right. Okay. So, you know, we get a decent number, but we need more. We need more 18 to 29 year olds to say so, but, but the reason I think we’re kind of jumping off the cliff, um, is that it’s, these numbers are so consistent with, with the Texas kind of slant to what we’ve seen in so many national and statewide polls.

[00:18:52] Daron: I, I, to the point about moving perceptions of the economy, I think theoretically, I agree with you, Josh, but I will take a bet, a [00:19:00] 10 to one bet that they can’t move those Trump numbers. And it doesn’t matter what the reality is. It matters what people’s perceptions are. I think the, I don’t even think that’s necessarily what they’re trying to do.

[00:19:10] Daron: I mean, we can dive into these numbers, but a great question that you guys had on the poll was asking Biden voters what they thought was the biggest weakness and asking Trump voters what they thought was the biggest weakness. And I’d love to. Talk about that a little because that’s

[00:19:24] Jim: I want, I want to get to that, Darren, because I think that was, yes, we did do a great job with that.

[00:19:29] Jim: Um, not me, but, uh, well, we were all here. Yeah. Um, you saw it. Don’t act like you didn’t see it. No, I did not. I did not mix it from the draft. It’s true. Um, I do. I want to, I want to go back to the subgroup thing again, cause it’s, you know, it’s a little bit the elephant in the room. I just want to talk about it.

[00:19:46] Jim: And that is, you know, we saw, you know, as Josh alluded to, you know, essentially a statistically even share, I think a split between, uh, of Latino support in for Biden and for Trump. And, you [00:20:00] know, The Royal We, that is, Josh went back and dug out, you know, basically the history of our Latino numbers and looked at the sample composition.

[00:20:09] Jim: And there’s a couple of points to be made about it. I think one is across time, there’s a decent amount of variance. Although when I looked at that data, not as much as I actually would have thought in party identification, trial ballot, you know, expressions, et cetera, among Latinos. But it’s even more so the case for independence.

[00:20:31] Jim: And, and for African American voters, because the true independence, the African American voters are such small parts of the sample. And it’s true more than of anybody in any group in the poll, I think of any, with any reasonable presence in the poll, that independents are all over the place. You know, and in terms of your, you know, your sort of surprise at looking at the internals down and then seeing, Oh, but it’s closer than I would have thought.

[00:20:57] Jim: It’s that, you know, independents are swinging [00:21:00] much more. noticeably more in a Trump direction this time, but I could be wrong, but we’re, in this sample, we were on the kind of the low end of true independence. I think it was only eight or 9%. We’re usually between 11 and 14 or so I think. So that may also be, I just want to calm your sense of surprise, my friend.

[00:21:19] Daron: I’m surprised. But to go back,

[00:21:20] Jim: you know, I want to go back and talk a little bit about this Latino numbers because I think, you know, not to spoil or alert, I mean, I think there may be something about and having pulled a slightly. A slightly more conservative or Republican Latino sample this time, slightly than we’ve seen overall in the past, but on the other hand, things are trending in this direction.

[00:21:43] Josh: Yeah, and there’s something else that’s also I think is related and also separate to that, right, which is so yes, you know, overall, this is, you know, a more Republican Latino sample than we’ve seen in the past. We see, you know, and again, this could just be what happens from sampling. It could be noise.

[00:21:59] Josh: We’ll see. [00:22:00] But just by a couple of points, I think, right? I mean, it’s above the averages. And to your point too, though, you know, we say if you look at the over time trends and you look at the yearly averages and party ID among the groups, so we can deal with a little bit of that sample size, there’s no doubt that there aren’t, there isn’t an increase in Republican identification among Hispanics in Texas over the last three, four years.

[00:22:18] Josh: Like that’s clearly evident in the data. What’s, what’s interesting. And I would say where, you know, I would say where I would agree that, you know, Biden and Democrats in Texas. Writ large have a problem is that when you break up those hispanics by their party id at this point Which again was looking relatively even in this poll, you know, biden’s at 71 12 among hispanic democrats and in february He was at 85 8 and back in april of 2020.

[00:22:41] Josh: He was at 87 4 So he basically has dropped about 16 points from where he was in april 2020 with hispanic democrats To where he is now and so then the question becomes well, what’s that about? Well one You There’s a lot of variability there that could be related to the sample. It could be related to the group.

[00:22:57] Josh: So even just in this 2023 24 [00:23:00] cycle, Biden’s support has ranged between 85 percent among Hispanic Democrats, but then we can kind of go back a beat and go, where might the problems be? And you look at sort of the job approvals and you look at sort of specific questions we asked about the economy and you know, the Hispanic voters, Very concerned about the prices and inflation is very concerned about the economy and very concerned about the border, which are three issues where Biden is just, you know, in the toilet, really, you know, give

[00:23:23] Jim: him, you know, low rate, you know, give him low rating, relatively low ratings in all of those areas and even his

[00:23:28] Josh: and even and even Hispanic, Hispanic Democrats.

[00:23:31] Josh: And that’s sort of important point here, whereas normally we can kind of say, you know, partisanship wipes out a lot of this. Republicans are going to give him negative ratings on everything for everything. Democrats are going to give him more of the benefit of the doubt. And you kind of look for where they don’t.

[00:23:42] Josh: But if you look at, you know, Hispanics, uh, Hispanic Democrats rating of Biden on say inflation, he’s about even with those who approve and disapprove. And that’s just not a place you can be and, you know, expect to do very well.

[00:23:55] Jim: Yeah. Yeah. If you think partisanship overwhelms everything, you’re wrong. At [00:24:00] least in the, you know, at least in the polling, we’ll see what now, but that, that raises the question, will that translate in November to the vote?

[00:24:07] Jim: I don’t, you know, anyway. So what do you, I mean, what do you, I mean, how similar are these kinds of issues and what we’re talking about here to what you’re seeing in the national stuff that you’re doing? Well,

[00:24:15] Daron: they’re, they’re extremely similar. I mean, I think, uh, the Hispanic numbers are even worse in this poll, uh, than they are nationally, but you know, we’ve got Trump in the, you know, kind of mid forties here with Hispanics and, uh, you know, in the national polling I’ve been doing, we’ve been seeing Trump in the low forties.

[00:24:32] Daron: So it’s not that unusual. I mean, the, you know, with respect to African Americans, the Trump number here is relatively lower again, small sample size, but Trump said, what, 14%, I think amongst African Americans,

[00:24:44] Josh: uh, five way in the five way, uh, or the two

[00:24:46] Daron: way. I’m sorry. The two way

[00:24:47] Josh: in the two ways of 14. That’s right.

[00:24:48] Daron: Right. Um, I think, uh, you know, we’ve had, uh, Trump and some of the national polls as high as 21, 22, 23%, which is a stunning number. And one that. You know, my colleague, Tasha Philpott here says, there’s no way [00:25:00] that’s going to happen. And, uh, and she knows a lot about African American politics. I’ve got, uh, you know, colleagues, Gary Segura and Matt Bredos.

[00:25:07] Daron: There’s no way Trump’s going to get 45 percent of, uh, um, you know, of the Latino vote and, you know, okay. You know, I mean, uh, they, they know, they know the data and they’re, they’re really excellent scholars. But, uh, but I’m pretty open to the notion that, uh, uh, a lot of stuff could happen that I think is sort of low probability at this point.

[00:25:29] Daron: Um, you know, as I said, I’ll, I’ll go back to what I was talking about earlier. I just, uh, I am, I think there’s something for everybody here, as we often say in these polls. Um, You know, I, I do think the Biden fave numbers aren’t terrible. His, you know, his personal favorability is minus nine Trump, by the way, is plus five fave unfave, which I believe is the highest he has ever has

[00:25:53] Josh: the highest net rating.

[00:25:54] Josh: He’s had in 22 surveys going back in November of 2015, where we’ve asked favor unfave for him.

[00:25:59] Daron: Yeah, [00:26:00] it’s so, you know, The Biden Biden sort of within

[00:26:03] Jim: being stuck in a courtroom is good for him. But I will say this

[00:26:06] Josh: is where some of the issues we’re discussing come together, though. This is we’re also having, you know, a Hispanic sub sample that is leaning a little more Republican than we’ve seen in the past.

[00:26:14] Josh: You know, he’s plus five among Hispanics in the survey. I mean, there’s some other, you know, these things, obviously, it’s all one survey. Yeah.

[00:26:21] Daron: The Biden approval is we asked 10 specific item evaluations. How is Biden doing on inflation, the economy, border security, foreign policy, climate out of 10. He’s underwater on nine.

[00:26:32] Daron: He’s plus two on climate change. He’s the next best issue for him is infrastructure where he’s still minus three. He is underwater by double digits on every single other issue. Minus 26 on inflation, minus 18 on gun violence, minus 15 on the economy, minus 25 on border security. Um, you know, even like that, it sounds pretty bad.

[00:26:54] Daron: Yeah. Even on abortion, minus 12, you know, I mean, these, these numbers are, [00:27:00] are really tough. Um, and, you know, I think, of course, it’s April, there’s a lot of time, the campaign is meant to, to kind of recast people’s image of how Biden has done on these issues. But I, I tell you, outside circumstances, it’s, Really seem to be kind of working against him right now.

[00:27:18] Daron: I, you know, just as a long range view, I think he needs some kind of success in Ukraine and or Gaza, um, because the foreign policy shifts just exacerbates all these internal things. And of course the economic

[00:27:29] Josh: numbers aren’t

[00:27:29] Daron: helping.

[00:27:30] Josh: I wonder if that even is enough for him. I mean, that’s more of a removal of a problem, not like a.

[00:27:34] Josh: Well, I think of it kind of like the

[00:27:35] Daron: Union Address, which is people kept talking about, wow, that he’s got a bump in the pulse from that. No, the main thing the State of the Union Address did was it just stopped the conversation that he’s mentally incompetent. It didn’t reverse anything.

[00:27:47] Josh: And to bring up your point, and it didn’t actually take away that concern, right?

[00:27:50] Josh: What

[00:27:51] Jim: it did was it squelched the coverage of it. Right, exactly. And

[00:27:55] Josh: yeah, so what we did was is we asked, you know, people who’s in the two way, if you said you were going to [00:28:00] support Biden, you know, we said, Well, you say you’re going to support Joe Biden. Do you have any concerns about his candidacy? And if they said yes, we asked them to tell us in an open ended question, we did the same thing for Trump supporters.

[00:28:11] Josh: So overall, 42 percent of Biden supporters said that they had a concern 29 percent of Trump supporters. So among those 42%, uh, yeah. The majority, almost two thirds, 63 percent mentioned something about his age, his health or his mental competence. The next closest was Israel or Gaza, which was 10%. And then 8 percent said inflation or the economy and the rest were smaller, which just speaks to your point.

[00:28:33] Josh: Yes. You know, maybe out of sight, not out of mind in terms of that issue. And then for Trump, you know, just, you know, for people again, something for everyone here, there was no one thing that dominated, you know, sort of basically the third of the population. Trump supporters who said they had an issue, which is notable just in and of itself as a result here, given, I think, some of the coverage of Trump.

[00:28:51] Josh: But, uh, you know, the things that did, I think, kind of rise to the top is if you sort of combine the people who said something about his personality or what he might say, which I think are [00:29:00] related, but different. That’s 26 percent of those voters, about a quarter, sort of just worried about how he’s going to conduct himself.

[00:29:05] Josh: But again, that’s 26 percent of a third of Trump supporters, right? So we’re not really talking about a huge share,

[00:29:11] Daron: but it’s, I think these numbers are really fascinating and they’re Some numbers we ran on the Fox poll last month where we asked, what’s the single greatest accomplishment of the Biden administration?

[00:29:20] Daron: What’s the single greatest failure? Same thing for Trump, the Trump administration. And for Biden, what you, what you found was that the single greatest accomplice was essentially not being Trump. Um, otherwise it was difficult to tell. And the, the greatest failure was very issue specific. It was inflation.

[00:29:37] Daron: It was Gaza, right? Um, and it was to a lesser extent Afghanistan and some other things. For Trump. The signature achievements were, you know, the economy. border security. They’re very issue specific. The failures were just like they are here. Um, you know, essentially almost all of them derived, you know, derived from his personality, which is basically sort of untrustworthy, dishonest, you know, kind of [00:30:00] ethical failings, and then his mouth.

[00:30:02] Daron: And it, so it’s divisive, you know, inflammatory, right? And a lot of people said, you know, we did the open ended his big mouth. And so it’s, it’s, I just find it interesting because the, if you take these numbers in those, the tasks are pretty clear. If you’re a Trump supporter, you know, if Trump would give America, Texas or America, some assurance that, you know, maybe he can keep those things under control, he would probably could manage himself.

[00:30:31] Daron: Yeah. Parents tell their Biden side, it’s a matter of exactly, you know, explaining exactly what have you done on these issues where we think you have failed. And don’t sound old doing it. Yeah. I was just going to say, explain it

[00:30:44] Jim: in a way that doesn’t make us think about how old you are.

[00:30:47] Daron: I do think there are a lot of people, we’ve been getting a lot of conversations lately, especially amongst independent voters and focus groups, that they felt that Biden had actually promised not to run for a second term, which he didn’t, [00:31:00] but, but he never,

[00:31:01] Josh: he never.

[00:31:01] Josh: Yeah. He held out for a while, making clear his plans though.

[00:31:07] Daron: But it’s, it’s weird that that is seen by many as a broken promise too.

[00:31:11] Jim: Yeah. That’s, that’s strange. Um,

[00:31:15] Josh: I mean, I have a transition unless, you know, to the Senate race, if you’re ready, well, that’s what I

[00:31:18] Jim: was going to do. I mean, and I think there is, I mean, I think the numbers in the trend in the span, in the, in the U S Senate race are an interesting contrast and point to some of the things here, although there’s a, I think the, the results here really, Point to just how much of the oxygen the presidential race has taken and how little attention This Senate race is gonna judge once you give us the the overview of the Senate race

[00:31:43] Josh: Yeah, so on the Senate trial ballot, we had Senator Cruz at 46 percent Representative all red at 33 so a very comfortable 13 point Margin there.

[00:31:53] Josh: Um, you know, I mean, I think it’s important to point out here that this is obviously a very different race because we’re not talking about two [00:32:00] incumbents with, you know, universal name recognition. You know, Cruz’s is really riding high at the moment with Republican voters. If you look at his numbers across the poll, I mean, he’s, uh, Yeah.

[00:32:09] Josh: Really, you know, high job approval ratings, you know, relatively high, you know, fave on faves with key groups. And so you see, you know, for example, he has 82 percent support among Republicans in that trial ballot, you know, already a newer player in this has 67 percent of support from Democrats. So there’s some room for him toe.

[00:32:25] Josh: And that’s not because they don’t Yeah. It’s a performance because they don’t know who he is. And so you imagine that gap will probably get a little bit closer to the presidential one, you know, as time goes on. But, you know, I mean, given all the things we’ve been discussing here, you know, if Biden has having, you know, potentially a really hard time in Texas on these key issues, it doesn’t really, you know, bode well for all red toe to kind of climb that hill.

[00:32:45] Josh: Right?

[00:32:47] Jim: Yeah, one wouldn’t think so. Yeah. I mean, look, I think. Um, while you’re looking at the numbers, what were you thinking, Darren? Go ahead.

[00:32:54] Daron: Well, I think it’s on the Cruz side, 49 percent approved, 38 percent disapproved, plus [00:33:00] 11 on job approval, which for him is a fantastic rating relatively. I just pulled the June 2018 numbers.

[00:33:05] Daron: So around this time from his previous Senate election, he was 39 approved, 41 disapproved, minus two. Yeah. So a very,

[00:33:13] Josh: this is his highest recorded net approval rating.

[00:33:15] Daron: Yep. And I’ve got him on the fav, unfav, plus seven. So, you know, what’s the knock on Cruz? He’s personally unpopular. Well, actually not so much here.

[00:33:22] Daron: It’s his highest, uh, fave unfave since June of 2014. Right. So, you know, this was before he ran for president before he, you know, accrued all the kind of damage of being a Senator and, you know, issue votes and going on vacation plans to Mexico and all that kind of jazz escorting. Right. So, so there’s that part of it, which is.

[00:33:42] Daron: Boy, you look at the issue environment, like you said, the overall ratings. And then you look at Cruz’s personal numbers and you’re like, man, on the other hand, you know, Allred’s plus 15 fave on fave pretty good is very good. Now it’s 21 percent don’t know who he is. Right. Not so good, but presumably remediable, right.

[00:33:59] Daron: Um, [00:34:00] you know, raising a lot of money, right. Cruz’s at 46 in the, in the race and Allred’s at 33. Right. That’s 7 percent saying they’re going to vote for else, 15 percent don’t know. So that’s 22 percent really who are, you know, presumably once they’re introduced, the democratic candidate will be favorably inclined.

[00:34:17] Daron: So you know, there, I think there’s a clear path to sort of shrink this to single digits. I think one of the

[00:34:24] Jim: things that’s interesting about this, I think is that, and look, I mean, this is, you know, I mean, This is going to sound like a criticism and it’s really not, although it’s just, it is a, a little bit of a, of a burr under my saddle.

[00:34:37] Jim: But I mean, I think in some ways Allred’s weakness here is partially a function of the approach they took in the primary, which was necessary at the time, or, you know, no, one’s going to argue with the fact that he was in a crowded race. He avoided a runoff, you know, came out, you know, without a lot of damage, but came out of that primary race, still not.[00:35:00]

[00:35:00] Jim: Not as universally known had that race required him to run a bunch of ads, had it been more competitive. So in some sense it reflects a little bit of his success. And I would also say about this race and how our poll fits into the overall context is, you know, there have been a couple of polls recently that have had this, race in single digits, one in particular that was a Marist poll, uh, about a month ago, maybe a little less that I think had, uh, cruised by six.

[00:35:28] Jim: But if you go and you look at that poll, they also forced the don’t knows. So, you know, that’s just something we tend to, you know, everybody has, everybody has their way of doing things. That’s something we would not do until right before an election. Because it’s so early to go back to that April theme.

[00:35:44] Jim: So I think there’s a lot of different things going on that also explain the spread in the numbers that we’re seeing. One, you know, in, inherent variability and how much attention people are playing or paying and how these groups move. But also the fact [00:36:00] that we, you know, we ask people, there are a lot, you know, there is not a lot of attention on this race.

[00:36:04] Jim: Um,

[00:36:05] Josh: yeah.

[00:36:06] Jim: You know, in the state as thus far,

[00:36:07] Josh: you know, Jim and I’ve been talking a lot and, and, and writing some, and maybe some more about, you know, the overall trends and, and, you know, where these sort of are Projecting to fit on the overall, you know, kind of long term trend lines about Texas competition and things like that.

[00:36:20] Josh: And I do think it’s, it’s notable here that, you know, when you kind of strip these questions of, you know, in some ways the issue environment specifically, but also the particular candidates and just look at the congressional and text ledge trial ballots,

[00:36:33] Daron: that’s where I was going to go. The

[00:36:34] Josh: gap is four points.

[00:36:35] Josh: Right. It’s 45 Republican, 41 Democrat on both polls with about nine or 10 saying they don’t know or someone else. And so if you’re, you know, if you’re kind of listening to this thing, wait a minute though, but it was five points and it was all this. It’s like, yeah, I mean, that still exists. I think it’s sort of, you know, we think about where the baseline is and what, you know, what direction it’s going to go and whether it’s going to expand or contract.

[00:36:53] Josh: I think that sort of baseline and sort of the four to seven point Republican advantage is still clearly there. [00:37:00] But with a really unpopular president, a really bad issue set that gets bigger, you know, with a very, very popular within his party, incumbent senator, and someone who’s much less known, both within his party and generally, it gets bigger.

[00:37:12] Josh: And that’s kind of why, again, it’s April. Got to wait and see. But that’s where some of that, I think, competitiveness that’s not apparent in this poll is probably hiding, and it may not really manifest itself this cycle.

[00:37:23] Jim: Yeah, I mean, look, I, you know, been thinking about this a lot, just to pop back up to the more general level for a second.

[00:37:30] Jim: You know, I was, gave a couple of talks this, you know, this week for some classes on campus and as I was going back and looking at what we think about in our baseline kind of assessments And we’ve talked about it in here, all three of us, and in various combinations, the idea that the presidential gap at the top of the ticket has been more or less steadily dropping, you know, if you, if you start from 2000 in terms of the Republican margin of victory.

[00:37:57] Jim: But you start looking at each one of those presidential elections and [00:38:00] for Texas, it’s a very strange set. Right. Because in 2000 and 2004, obviously you have George W. Bush on the ballot, which is going to skew in his favor and the Republicans favor. Then you’ve got Obama, the first black president in 2008 and 2012 and that, you know, I don’t think you can explain away that being a little, a little different.

[00:38:21] Jim: Yeah. Um, and then you’ve got the two Trump elections. So yeah, you know, you can see kind of a line, but you know, how, how much should we really hang on that? I’ll,

[00:38:32] Daron: I’ll stick with my guns on. I don’t think Trump’s a very good fit. in Texas for Texas Republicans, his, his, uh, you know, his best states amongst competitive states, these upper Midwest states where there’s a very large white blue collar, you know, kind of clientele is tapping into it’s disaffected.

[00:38:49] Daron: It’s, it’s sort of distinct. It’s, you know, question is, uh, that they’re asking is, you know, what’s where’s America, where am I, where do I fit in this new America? And I, you know, those [00:39:00] voters exist in Texas, but I still think there’s a strong sort of traditional business. you know, entrepreneurial Republican voter in Texas.

[00:39:07] Daron: I think there’s social conservatives in Texas where Trump does well by default, I think.

[00:39:11] Josh: And I mean, that could be tricky as time goes on. And I think that’s, yeah,

[00:39:15] Daron: I think there’s a fair amount of suspicion amongst some of those. Elements in Texas. And, and, and so it’s a, you know, Trump’s core support is less central to Republicanism in Texas than it is other places.

[00:39:25] Daron: And the, the personal shtick that might work in some of those other places, I think, you know, he’s a Yankee. He’s not a Southerner. He, you know, there’s, there’s something about that abrasive New Yorker personality that I think it’s not that it doesn’t work, but I just don’t think it’s, it’s as big a selling point in Texas as it is.

[00:39:42] Daron: I’d say,

[00:39:42] Josh: yeah, but the border. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we’re spinning

[00:39:46] Daron: yarn. I’m spinning yards. You know what I mean? I’m trying to, I’m trying to figure out why it is he runs under a generic Republican in Texas has, whereas he runs over a generic Republican in Michigan, you know, or

[00:39:58] Jim: Wisconsin, [00:40:00] you know, you know, it’s interesting.

[00:40:01] Jim: I mean, you know, I mean, as I think about that, and there’s a bunch of, I have a bunch of different reactions. The first one, I like it. I like it though. This is fun. It’s riffy. Um, but I mean, I think one of the things that’s interesting not to be, you know, I’m the last one to be particularly political science y about it, but I think that one of the things we are seeing though, is that Trump taps into enough of some of the underlying sentiments, predispositions, cultural currents in the state that, and he’s been so successful.

[00:40:36] Jim: In, you know, chain, you know, having an effect on the Republican brand that he is providing a kind of different elite model and sending a sets of signals that may well be activating some things that were there in Texas before him at the electoral level. And that’s why you’re seeing so much discomfort [00:41:00] Among the more traditional republican business interests the business orientation because I think you’re right I mean, you know, we see we’ve seen this when we’ve kind of pulled some of this.

[00:41:09] Jim: I mean You know, absolutely. Do you think that you’re going to get a pretty positive response from Republicans in Texas on values like entrepreneurship and all the things that are kind of go with that we associate with the pro business attitude. But, you know, to Josh’s point, there, there are other things going there to be activated that were managed differently in the past, you know, and I think we’re seeing, you know, yeah, I mean, You know, I think we were all a little surprised when Texans went, yeah, Trump, you know, yeah, that’s, that makes sense.

[00:41:41] Jim: You know, on the other hand, I mean, there’s a lot going on there that was already brewing when he stepped into it.

[00:41:49] Daron: I think that the complicating factor here is the racial and ethnic composition of Texas. And I’ll say it, the odd perceptions about the efficacy of the [00:42:00] Trump economy. And, you know, I’m not going to get into an argument about whether the Trump economy was really great or not so great, but, uh, the perception amongst lower status individuals that the Trump economy was a go go economy.

[00:42:15] Daron: And was good for people like them. It’s pretty sticky. I think it’s surprisingly sticky. And that has buoyed him a little bit in Texas. I, I think, you know, now we could, maybe it’s because we have kind of a quirky Hispanic sample and that’s a place where it’s particularly kind of, you know, his, his appeal seems to have been isolated.

[00:42:32] Daron: So if you got more of those, you know, maybe that’s, what’s driving these numbers. But, but I mean, the storyline, is in a lot of ways, not that complicated, right? I mean, there’s just this perception that, you know, Trump’s economy was good for people like me, where those people are lower socioeconomic status.

[00:42:48] Daron: And I just think that’s the fundamental one of the fundamental problems the Biden administration has is, you know, I know, you know, just, we don’t know Joe Biden. You guys don’t know him, right? Okay. Yeah. Well, but you know, it’s got to drive him [00:43:00] crazy. Right. The Scranton Joe is seeding those voters

[00:43:05] Jim: presiding over the flea.

[00:43:06] Jim: Yeah, right. Less educated working even. I

[00:43:09] Josh: mean, we wrote about this in a post recently talked about a little bit in here, but I mean, even even more approximately, the fact is, you know, when you’re talking about Trump’s economy, it’s like, well, you’re talking about pre or post pandemic. Oh, absolutely. And if you go to the sort of the end of Trump’s presidency and where people’s economic evaluations are, and then you look at where they are under Biden.

[00:43:25] Josh: In Texas, we’re talking about here. You know, you’d say, Hey, it’s been an improvement, but that’s not the comparison point to your point. People, you know, and so ultimately Biden’s not only responsible for inflation and everything, he’s also responsible, it seems for basically the pandemic economy that was in play up until there’s

[00:43:41] Daron: not just, there is a book to be written about why perceptions of the Trump economy stop in February of 2020 and, and I’ve, you know, I got some weight, the way COVID was handled this and that.

[00:43:53] Daron: But, but. It’s still, you know, taking out the, it’s, it’s one of the luckiest things politically [00:44:00] that I’ve seen. And, you know, there’s been a lot of luck on both sides, but, but that is absolutely buoyed his fortunes, I think.

[00:44:07] Jim: Yeah. Because it’s sort of. I think you guys can correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s the opposite of what we would expect all things being equal, that the most recent sort of recollection of Trump’s economic performance should be that last year where the economy tanked.

[00:44:24] Yeah,

[00:44:24] Josh: it could just be that it’s easy to excuse it away, right? There’s an obvious,

[00:44:27] Jim: I think that’s right. Yeah. I think that’s right. The way you want it has just become the exceptional period that we all set aside for kind of there’s that

[00:44:35] Daron: there’s that there’s well, who could have done anything about that?

[00:44:36] Daron: There’s that. There’s also the motivated reasoning, which is I’m a Republican. I don’t want it to be true. And then there’s frankly, the federalized response to covid where You know, in places like California and New York, you could blame the economic, you know, doldrums to these shutdowns and, you know, things like that.

[00:44:54] Daron: So I think all of that is layered in, which is why it’s probably a book.

[00:44:58] Jim: So I do want to, we’re weaving a little bit, but [00:45:00] I’ve enjoyed that. I do want to go back and ask one more thing. That we can’t answer for sure. Perfect. These are my favorite questions, but it sounds like an argument

[00:45:09] Josh: with my wife. The

[00:45:10] Jim: answer is yes, that would be correct.

[00:45:13] Jim: I think, or I think that’s probably right, but I, but as we look at this Cruz all red race, we focused a lot on. The reasons already may be a little bit under, you know, underperforming right now. Um, on the other hand, does this mean that Ted Cruz’s, you know, well documented campaign to portray himself as somebody who in the last couple of years has been very effectively willingly and enthusiastically reaching across the aisle to pass a few bills here and there with Democrats.

[00:45:47] Jim: I mean, My, my suspicion is most people have not noticed that even though it’s been definitely a communication strategy for the cruise campaign for about a year now. Do you, I [00:46:00] mean, now they may just be laying the groundwork for doing more of that in the, well, we had a summer in the park.

[00:46:07] Daron: I mean, I’m not sure, you know, you can only look at these sort of broader measures, like the fave unfave where all of a sudden he’s on the right side of, Yeah.

[00:46:17] Daron: People like him versus not, or favorable or unfavorable. There was a good compromise. We have this question we’ve asked fairly consistently. You want someone to stand up on their principles or do they want to compromise to get something done? I, I’m not doing quite enough justice to the question, but I always liked it because it really presents both sides as, as attractive options to the respondent.

[00:46:37] Daron: And we’ve actually got a bump up in people saying, you know, they would prefer that you stand on your principle, which, yeah. Surpri given the state of politic, especially among Republicans Yeah, amongst Republicans, and it, given the state of the world, it, it surprised me a bit, especially as, you know, I think yesterday I was listening to Ted Cruz, basically Excoriate, um, some of the members of the Republican House for, you know, wanting to get rid of their [00:47:00] speaker, um, for the fourth time, fifth time, and, you know, the last cycle.

[00:47:04] Daron: Um, I, you know, I’m actually, I think. Allred has, there is some good news here. Um, you know, Cruz is at 46 in the two, not 56. He’s at 46. Um, and the old bromide is if you’re under 50 percent as an incumbent, then, you know, yeah, yeah. Um, yes. Allred’s personal. Uh, supporters at four at 33. So he is chasing 13 points, but heck biden’s at 36 in the five way.

[00:47:31] Daron: Um, Biden’s at 40 in the two way. So there I see very little chance that that already won’t Overperform Biden . Um, as long as he gets his message out there. I mean, I think Josh pointed to the, the house race, both the US house where it’s the, the two-way. Generic matchup is 45 41, the State House race 45 41, which suggests to me that.

[00:47:54] Daron: Allred’s probably with a full fledged campaign working at a, at a, at a basement of about [00:48:00] 41%. So the question is, can you become known more favorably than an increase on that ceiling? And he’s got such a good story. He’s got a ton of money. And can you drive down cruises? Right. And what I’m, I’m interested in seeing is that the cruise campaign seems a little frozen here.

[00:48:18] Daron: They don’t have a ton of money and they’re not entirely, we’ve had this conversation in different contexts, but it’s very relevant here. Do they want to go out and negatively define Colin Allred? Do they want to stick a blowtorch to Allred before he gets known? Or do they want to risk it? And say, like, well, maybe nobody will pay attention.

[00:48:37] Daron: We’ll just leave well enough alone. We’ll just, we’ll just ride this out and run the risk of already possibly dumping 40 million in this race and everybody going, oh, this guy’s a pretty good guy.

[00:48:46] Jim: Because my suspicion is that they are going to be very reticent to do that because everything I see from the Cruz campaign, and I’m not inside it.

[00:48:57] Jim: Sure. But is that. [00:49:00] You know, they are very cognizant of how close it came last time.

[00:49:05] Josh: Yeah. See, I’m, I would, you know, I would lean more, you know, as a betting man towards them, torching them. And the reason is because they didn’t torch O’Rourke, right. And they regretted that clearly by the end of the campaign.

[00:49:17] Josh: And that needed a lot of help, you know, at the end of that 28 campaign. And Abbott clearly learned from that and torched O’Rourke immediately in the governor’s race and to good effect, you know, regard setting aside, you know, external conditions and all that kind of stuff that, you know, played to or, you know, into the advantage or disadvantage.

[00:49:32] Josh: So I mean, I think if history is any guide here, you know, I’m not going to say the smart thing I put that in quotes, I don’t know, but like, it seems like you would torch him.

[00:49:39] Daron: I completely agree with the strategic point of view just because there are only two races in the country. Or the Democrats might pick up a seat, you know, Texas and Florida.

[00:49:50] Daron: Florida is probably a slightly more attractive option now because of the abortion amendment that’ll probably draw some money, but, but even so, how much money already have on [00:50:00] hand right now? I mean, he’s, you know, the notion that he’s not going to get known, it’s pretty fanciful, even with a presidential election sucking.

[00:50:07] Daron: Well,

[00:50:07] Jim: and I do think that the, you know, the all red campaign and Democrats connected with that are also very mindful. I think of. The common criticism of the O’Rourke campaign, which was kind of the democratic version of what you said, which is that they did not go negative enough on television on Cruz.

[00:50:26] Jim: And then lost by an amount that might’ve been movable. And my suspicion is you’re going to see some very heavy negative ads against cruise. And that’s also one of the reasons that the cruise people are trying to build this, you know, no, he’s a nice, Yeah, and the thing is

[00:50:45] Josh: that money’s not even going to come necessarily directly from Allred.

[00:50:47] Josh: That’s going to come from outside groups who are going to gleefully spend against Cruz. Yeah,

[00:50:51] Daron: there’s no way you’re not going to get 80 million in Super PAC money coming in dumped on Ted Cruz’s head here. Um, I’m actually surprised. I know we have a [00:51:00] runoff. Blah, blah, blah. I’m surprised you haven’t seen one or both sides up already.

[00:51:06] Daron: Um, and I’m, you know, it’s easy for us to sit here in a warm, cozy studio saying it’s a mistake. I don’t understand the content. I don’t know how much money I don’t earn, but boy, it seems like a risky move to wait until late summer to do some of this stuff. Yeah, but you know,

[00:51:22] Jim: again, April, they could be, they could be waiting for the runoffs

[00:51:26] Daron: they probably read some of our stuff about how effects are ephemeral.

[00:51:29] Daron: And so, you know, they’re just following our plan. I’m sure that’s what it is. I’m definitely reading our stuff. Yeah, it’s all, it’s all the.

[00:51:34] Jim: political science. That’s exactly right. We all know how much, how much campaign consultants really love the science. Um, part of that, part of that dislike, I blame on you, I blame myself.

[00:51:48] Jim: So, you know, we’re running out of time, but let’s go, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the economy before we close out. Um, because you know, we’ve talked about this before. It’s such a, you know, on one [00:52:00] hand, you know, and both of you have kind of alluded to different aspects of this, what’s going on here is pretty clear, but I think in terms of people’s emphasis, people’s focus and their experience, you know, by, I think there’s a little extrapolation with rising prices and inflation.

[00:52:17] Jim: But that is still just driving economic behavior, Josh. You, or one of you cited, I think actually, Darren, I think you did it first, but you know, we asked this question about, you know, where their concerns were, where they were feeling the negative effects of the economy.

[00:52:29] Josh: Yeah, we asked, we asked them about how concerned they were about different economic issues.

[00:52:33] Josh: And some of them were, you know, kind of obviously front and center. Some of them were positive. Purposefully not, but that’s so we can ask again later, you know, in the future when things change and I mean, what really jumps off the page is that, you know, 68 percent of voters said they were very concerned.

[00:52:46] Josh: So it was the most extreme choice about, you know, the prices and cost for consumer goods. So, you know, over two thirds, uh, that was 80 percent of Republicans. I think it was 77 percent of Hispanic voters. I mean, it’s just, you know, Off the [00:53:00] charts, you healthcare driven by Democrats with second, the price of the cost of healthcare, basically 59.

[00:53:05] Josh: So that’s our perennial democratic concern that you see pop up, you know, it’s

[00:53:08] Jim: a perennial policy concern where there have, it’s one of the areas where we have seen significant price increases.

[00:53:14] Josh: Right? And that’s right. That’s Democrats. Biggest concern in the poll. But then, uh, You also have the prices of gas and energy was 56 percent were very concerned and housing is a big issue.

[00:53:22] Josh: You know, a lot of places, 55 percent of voters said they were very concerned about the cost of housing. And so, you know, things that are, you know, again, this is where we talk about, you know, sort of strange case of, of, you know, inflation, you know, people being unable to find jobs was only, um, 34 percent of voters were very concerned about that.

[00:53:42] Josh: So that just shows kind of, again, it’s not so much, you know, the economies. You know, not that people can’t find jobs, it’s that they can’t afford basics, food, uh, energy, you know, gas, and housing. Or

[00:53:54] Jim: they can, or even if they’re affording it, they’re just noticing they’re irritated by the rising prices. Right.

[00:53:59] Daron: [00:54:00] Yeah, this is, you know, I have a friend, Arnon Mishkin, who basically I work with on the Fox Decision team, and Arnon’s point about this is like, look, the question for the Biden administration is whether people get used to a, you know, a nine dollar box of Cheerios. Right. That price is not coming down. You can argue, well, but you’re making more money.

[00:54:16] Daron: Well, you know, there’s a lot of data out there showing that, yeah, wages have increased 13%. But prices have increased 18 percent and people notice that and those are manifest in these numbers. We still have, you know, when reference to the United States economy, 48 percent say it’s worse now than it was a year ago, 28 percent better.

[00:54:33] Daron: So a net, you know, kind of minus 20 with respect to negative appraisals on the economy. That’s to a year ago, not to 2021 or, and then on the family side, you and your family, it’s 41 percent worse, 25 percent better. So you could say like, well, they’re projecting, but We’re doing okay. Well, that’s not what people are saying.

[00:54:50] Daron: And you know, I, I, for one, you know, there’s a lot of economists kind of going back and forth on this. Um, I’m [00:55:00] completely willing to read kind of any economist take on this, but I have little tolerance for economists who talk about people being stupid because they don’t understand how great things are. Um, it, it doesn’t take a real detailed reading to know that there’s, they’re ambivalent economic indicators and that people are waiting them to come out.

[00:55:15] Daron: Differentially, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on. They’re waiting prices higher and you know, that you could argue that that’s wrong, but don’t tell them prices actually aren’t higher because they clearly are.

[00:55:27] Jim: The thing is, I mean, you know, one of the, that’s one of the reasons we asked those two different questions.

[00:55:34] Daron: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just for, for everybody knows in, everybody should know that in political science, God, you guys are turning us off in droves at this point, but there’s what we call pocket book voting, which is how am I doing? And then there’s what we call sociotropic voting, which is how do you think the country is doing?

[00:55:49] Daron: And the research tends to suggest that sociotropic appraisal, broad appraisals of the national economy are more powerfully correlated with the vote. the, the trouble here. And occasionally those [00:56:00] things slip out of. You know, sink case and you’ll get people say like, well, I’m doing okay, but I know the country isn’t, but that’s not what’s happening here.

[00:56:09] Daron: People both think they’re doing worse and the national economy. Although the interesting thing about these data is we asked in a year. Do you think things are going to be better or worse? 36 percent better 28 percent worse. And I didn’t look at, Jess, did you look at by Republicans or, because I’m interested in whether people think that, Oh, Trump will be president and then things will get better or whether it’s just a general opt.

[00:56:31] Daron: I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t have that in front of me. Okay. Yeah. But that’s, that, that’s a rare little bit of optimism with respect to where we’re headed. Well,

[00:56:38] Jim: the, the thing I noticed about these numbers is that, you know, whatever the difference, you know, between, you know, personal assessments and the broader structural assessments is that in this poll, we saw.

[00:56:52] Jim: You know, a stalling out of a trend that we had been seeing, and that is we had been seeing incremental improvements in both, [00:57:00] you know, over about the last May, not, not for a long time, just the last three polls, maybe incremental improvements in both of those assessments. And, you know, it was, you know, one of those things where you kind of, from our perspective, when you’re looking at like, are we, Getting people’s attitudes or not.

[00:57:19] Jim: It was a little comforting. It’s a little comforting to see that, you know, this kind of fits what we’ve been seeing out of the macroeconomic data, right? Which is we saw a few months of slow down in inflation. economy do, you know, just kind of firing up and the numbers were getting better and the gaps were closing for from the perspective, particularly of the Biden administration, but that’s in this pool.

[00:57:43] Jim: It just started. It kind of stalled out and ticked up slightly in the wrong direction. Yeah,

[00:57:48] Josh: I mean, you know, yeah, I think Yeah, I agree. I mean, the main thing there is, you know, to your point, I think all the good news was sort of incorporated in the good news being, yeah, the stock market soon. Well, you know, there’s real wage growth.

[00:57:59] Josh: Unemployment’s [00:58:00] low. But then to your point, sure, I’ll still cost 9. Right? Right. But it’s really, it’s kind of amazing,

[00:58:05] Jim: though, in that, you know, even even You know, the narrative is it was getting better was kind of wise and getting better faster because inflation is really falling.

[00:58:14] Yeah,

[00:58:15] Jim: right. But now that inflation is kind of plateauing a little bit or seems to, you know, that the reduction of the rate of increase has kind of stalled out.

[00:58:24] Jim: The numbers stalled out to which is kind of, you know,

[00:58:26] Josh: Well, and also nobody, nobody gets benefit. I mean, it’s sort of like the property tax thing in Texas. It’s like, you can’t run on the fact that your property taxes would have been so much higher if not for us. Yes, they’re still higher than they were, but vote for me because it would have been so much worse.

[00:58:40] Josh: And it’s kind of like that with inflation at this point. It’s like, you know, yeah, I mean, could have been worse. Could have been more, could have been a 12 box. I

[00:58:47] Daron: like the fact that we talk about prices and rising prices or not rising prices, rather than inflation, because, um, you know, we’re capturing what people actually experience.

[00:58:57] Daron: Experience, right. And, and, [00:59:00] you know, it’s, it’s, I think actually, sort of theoretically more correct to talk about prices as opposed to inflation, because as you mentioned, Jim, inflation, the rate of inflation, as the buy administration has been coming down, but it’s not that prices are getting lower. And I think that, and so people, you know,

[00:59:16] Jim: Yeah, and I’m not, I would not put it as, you know, quite as, you know, I mean, I don’t mind it when you take a stick to the economists.

[00:59:22] Jim: That’s totally fine with me. Yes, I’ll do that. But I, but I would kind of, you know, I mean, to put it in a, in a sort of slightly lighter way, I mean, it’s not reasonable to think that you can point to macroeconomic data and go, no, really when people are going, yeah, but I just like my usual basket of groceries just cost me, you know, X more than I would.

[00:59:41] Jim: And they’re not, you know, they’re not going to tell you the percent. They’re just going to go. Yeah. You know, my grocery, my shopping trips that like were under a hundred bucks are now over a hundred bucks.

[00:59:49] Josh: Most people’s home budgets aren’t pegged to inflation.

[00:59:53] Jim: That’s right. They’re not. Isn’t yours.

[00:59:55] Josh: Is yours.

[00:59:56] Josh: Cause we need to talk. Mine is definitely not. Okay. I was going to say,

[00:59:59] Jim: [01:00:00] okay, so we don’t have a lot of time left. So let’s, uh, you know, rather than extend the discussion too much, you know, in terms of, you know, with the framing device of what would you. Point somebody to look at in the poll that we didn’t talk about.

[01:00:12] Jim: What interested you with just a quick, you know, a quick description of why, so that we can keep the podcast at less than an hour and a half. Start with you, Darren.

[01:00:22] Daron: All right. I, uh, I like the, uh, the question that we included on Israel and Gaza, um, where we asked specifically, you know, what’s your position?

[01:00:29] Daron: Do you s you think we should be giving, uh, focusing on giving support to Israelis, uh, was 22%, uh, focusing on preventing Palestinian deaths. 14%. And you may be wondering, well, where’s the remainder? Uh, we actually gave people a choice to say both, you know, that we should be supporting the Israelis, but we should also be trying to limit Palestinian deaths.

[01:00:48] Daron: 35%. It’s the plurality response. Um, you know, and we had another 16 percent that said, stay out of it. Um, I think both of those last two findings are really consequential. And [01:01:00] I think we’ll, you know, when people look at those things, I think they’ll have additional information on where public opinion is on the Yeah.

[01:01:07] Daron: And

[01:01:07] Jim: then the subgroups will tell you will are interesting in that where there are and aren’t differences. Josh, how about you? I was

[01:01:13] Josh: going to follow up one thing on that to say is, you know, we asked the same question back in December and one of the really interesting, there was some movement, but not a ton and not a ton in a lot of subgroups.

[01:01:21] Josh: Yeah. We can leave that for a later discussion, but it’s, you know, pretty interesting. You know, there’s a lot of really great stuff in this poll. Again, we, we talk at all about this. The abortion or the immigration attitudes, which we have some really deep stuff on. I’m going to just point something out, an interesting result that I really enjoyed because it sort of undercuts everything we do, but it’s not in a way that I have a problem with.

[01:01:38] Josh: You know, we asked people, you know, how much if they had heard about a number of different issues, which we usually do in the poll, we call it our salience battery, what are people hearing a lot about? You know, so for example, 61 percent of voters have heard a lot about Donald Trump’s legal problems. I think it is notable and I’ll just put this out here as part of this campaign discussion, even though none of.

[01:01:54] Josh: You know, his legal problems appear to have affected support, and we can talk about we’ve talked about why that is, you know, in this podcast, [01:02:00] it is noticeable. This is always at the top, both among Republicans and Democrats. You know, it is something that is staying front and center. However, something not front and center for most voters.

[01:02:10] Josh: The outcome of the March primary elections, which we talked about it to ad nauseum. 16 percent of voters said they heard a lot about it. The speakers run off. So the runoff in the speaker’s race, bottom of the list, 14 percent of voters, 13 percent of Republicans, 16 percent of Democrats. So even though if you’re listening to this.

[01:02:26] Josh: You are paying attention to that speaker’s runoff, most voters are not.

[01:02:30] Jim: Yeah, try going to a cocktail party and go, a general, like a civilian cocktail party and go, Hey, how about that race? Sure, you know, what do you think, how do you think Jade Phelan’s doing?

[01:02:37] Josh: Buffalo Wild Wings, just, just go, just go talk to somebody.

[01:02:40] Josh: I think that’s a,

[01:02:42] Jim: that’s a good one. Uh, I, I agree, I agree with both of the things.

[01:02:50] Jim: Uh, I think both of those things are really, are really interesting. Um, you know, and again, in the spirit of the way I asked the question, we, [01:03:00] uh, We did a lot of questions this time on abortion attitudes and you know what I would point out in terms of people looking at that is a look at it because it’s very interesting, but we wrote this battery at very much as a multiple, you know, we were very conscious of the multiple components and how the results of these questions would inform interpretation of each other.

[01:03:24] Jim: So. You know, on one hand, we got, you know, very interesting kind of results in terms of, you know, these kind of more general position questions we asked, you know, should you agree or disagree that there should be criminal penalties imposed on a woman that has an abortion? Do you think Texas government is doing too much, too little, not enough, uh, or about the right amount, uh, to protect the rights of pregnant women?

[01:03:53] Jim: Uh, when do you think constitutional rights should begin? Should they begin at conception or not? [01:04:00] Um, and we got, you know, sort of closely divided answers on some of those. But then when you look at the more detailed grid that we did, that we’ve been running now for a couple of years, that asked people to make much more context specific judgments about when abortion could be allowed.

[01:04:18] Jim: And Darren was talking about this a little bit before we came on. You saw a lot of variability and a lot of variability among these groups that, you know, if you wanted to be picky with people, you would say, well, that seems not consistent with how you described your position, which I would call humanity, um, and nuance, right?

[01:04:37] Jim: And so, uh, You know, I, I think that those, those results are very worth looking at. If you haven’t looked at those, I think a lot of the early coverage of polling and, you know, our first discussions are on the national election, which is of course very important, but I would point people to look into those abortion numbers, a lot of interesting stuff.

[01:04:53] Jim: And we’ll be putting some stuff up at the website in the next couple of weeks or so that kind of dig into those and kind of bring [01:05:00] some of that out. Um, so again, I would point you to those. So Josh, thanks. Darren. Thanks again. Uh, I don’t know. Discussion. I found illuminating. I hope everyone else did. So thank you guys for being here.

[01:05:15] Jim: Thanks again to our excellent production team in the dev studio and the college of liberal arts at UT Austin here taking care of us again in the studio after what has been a pretty exhausting couple of weeks on the UT campus. Um, You can find all the data we’ve talked about, thousands of graphics for all of these results and things we haven’t gotten to, documentation for the poll that we’ve talked about and everything else we’ve done since, uh, uh, Darren and I came up with this weirdo idea to do this in 2008 at texaspolitics.

[01:05:50] Jim: utexas. edu. So thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another Second Reading podcast. The Second Reading [01:06:00] Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.