Jim Henson, PhD

Given the relative harmony between mainline and Tea Party Republicans in the Texas electorate, why can't their elected officials in the Legislature seem to get along?

Texas is already at the epicenter of the 2016 GOP presidential race — and not just because four Republicans with links to the state are on most early lists of top potential candidates. 

The final tallies from last week were relatively predictable, but they still raise an important question: Was there something particular to Texas this year that gave Republicans here such huge wins?

The postmortems of the 2014 Texas elections will no doubt feature much analysis of the split-partisan identity of the Hispanic electorate and why Davis didn't better connect with Texas' female voters, but the bigger explanation may yet rest on white males and their rejection of Wendy Davis and the Democrats.

A summary of public polling on the Texas Governor's race among likely voters since June 2014.

The October 2014 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll found Republican candidates favored over Democratic candidates by substantial margins in several statewide general election contests, with the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Attorney General Greg Abbott, leading the Democratic candidate, state Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, by a 16-point margin, 54 percent to 38 percent.  Six percent of likely voters chose Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass, and Green Candidate Brandon Parmer was the choice of 2 percent.

Republicans appear poised to again sweep this year's statewide elections. But dig deeper into the data and you'll find faint signs of long-term promise for Texas Democrats, even if their standard-bearer loses in November. 

The first release of the third wave of the massive New York Times/CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker included results in the 2014 Senate races as well as results for the "national attitudes" items.

The 2014 Texas Lyceum Poll finds Greg Abbott leading Wendy Davis 49%-40% among likely voters. Libertarian and Green Party candidates Kathie Glass and Brandon Parmer each garnered two points, and eight percent declined to choose a candidate. The poll was conducted from September 11-25, and had an overall sample size of 1000 respondents.  The trial ballot results were among a sub-group of 666 likely voters, and had a margin of error of +/- 3.80 percentage points.  

Given the high-level discourse that pervades The Texas Tribune Festival, it may seem uncouth to scrutinize the event in the context of polling. But it's a useful way to analyze what was happening onstage.