Jim Henson, PhD

Ted Cruz's standing with Tea Party voters and fundamentalist Christians in Texas and the timing of the Texas primary in the 2016 contest suggest basing the early phase of his candidacy on building support among both groups of voters makes sense for Cruz. He is well regarded by both groups in his home state, suggesting that if he builds a foundation among these groups in the early primary and caucus states, he is likely to augment his national base of support by attracting their votes in Texas. Texas is scheduled to hold a March 1 primary, with its large number of delegates likely to be apportioned among competitive candidate if there are still multiple candidates in the race with no clear front runner. 

Not surprisingly, Senator Ted Cruz's polling numbers in his home state of Texas, where he won the general election for his U.S. Senate seat by almost 16 percentage points after defeating David Dewhurst in the GOP primary run-off by almost 14 per percentage points, look a lot better than the single-digits he's earning in national and early primary state polling.  The patterns in Cruz's performance in the 2016 GOP presidential nomination trial heats as well as his approval ratings, however, do help confirm the widespread observation that his most natural base of support is among the most conservative voters. They also illustrate why Texas's place in the 2016 GOP primary schedule increases his incentives to jump into a race in which he is widely viewed as a very long shot.

Critics have called some Republicans' swift turn against local control an opportunistic reaction to the Denton fracking ban. But the pushback has a foundation in public opinion.

Gov. Greg Abbott may have prioritized early education this year, but his support for modest changes to the state's pre-kindergarten system reflects the complicated divisions within his party.

The aura of inevitability around open carry legislation in Texas this year belies the divide among Republicans on the issue.

David Simpson's argument for more leniency when it comes to marijuana laws invites an examination of marijuana attitudes in Texas when broken down by how people describe their views of the Bible, given Simpson's reliance on the text for part of his argument.

The favorability ratings in the February 2015 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll for Governor Greg Abbott compared to the other two key players in the unfolding legislative session – Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Speaker of the House Joe Straus – nicely illustrate how the informal dimensions of the Governor's message power are expressed in public awareness of the office and its occupant. Abbott has the highest favorable rating and the best net favorable/unfavorable score; but more to the immediate point, the share of Texans who are sufficiently aware of Abbott to form an opinion about him – a very proximate but still useful indication of name recognition –  is much higher than that of his counterparts'.

The favorability ratings of Joe Straus, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, were among the more important findings nestled in the first batch of results released from the February UT/Texas Tribune Poll.

A map of the districts whose House members received committee chairs last week provides an interesting birds-eye view of influence in the chamber, especially within the Republican caucus.  

The United States Supreme Court's recent announcement that it will review the constitutionality of requiring states to recognize same-sex marriage invites another look at the attitudes toward same-sex marriage from the most recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll  – which found attitudes largely divided along partisan lines.