Jim Henson

This page compiles graphics for trends in job approval ratings of the current statewide incumbents (Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators) that Texans rate on every poll . Bookmark the page for easy reference – we’ve also added similar graphics for trends in Texans’ assessment of conditions in Texas and the U.S., and some archival results for comparison with leaders no longer in office.

The Texas Politics Project polling data archive contains multiple items that bear on both the content and the context of the omnibus voting and elections bill being debated during the final days of the 87th Texas Legislature. As the endgame on voting legislation that is gaining national attention unfolds over what's left of the Memorial Day weekend, we've compiled resources that reveal useful characteristics of the attitudinal context for this major legislative attempt to affect how elections are conducted in the future, and, by implication, what the composition of the electorate will be in upcoming elections.

While gathering some polling data for revisions I’m making to lecture notes for intro to Texas politics and government courses, I belatedly noticed that we have an unusual amount of job approval ratings for the new Speaker of the House as a result of the increased number of polls we’ve conducted so far this year. 

This page compiles graphics for trends in job approval ratings of the current statewide incumbents (Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators) that Texans rate on every poll . Bookmark the page for easy reference – we’ve also added similar graphics for trends in Texans’ assessment of conditions in Texas and the U.S., and some archival results for comparison with leaders no longer in office.

The shifts in Texans’ approval of the jobs the Governor and other statewide officials have done during an unprecedented period of crisis in the state provide a critical context for understanding the trajectory of state politics as we enter a key interlude in the intertwined legislative and election cycles.

The April 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll adds a fifth assessment of Texans’ attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic to the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, adding to attitudes collected in batteries from polls conducted in April, June, and October of 2020, and February and April of 2021. The time series allows reporters, researchers, elected leaders, public health officials, and the public a view of how Texans’ concerns about COVID, behaviors during the pandemic, and evaluations of the official responses have changed throughout a year of pandemic conditions in Texas.

All eyes in the Texas Capitol today will be on the floor of the Texas House, as the chamber considers the core appropriations bill (SB1) as well as the supplemental appropriation bill (HB2) and third reading for the significant follow-up bill to last session’s major education reform (HB1525, on which there are more than 20 prefiled amendments). The February 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll included a large array of questions on government spending and policy priorities. We’ve gathered them all in one place for reference as the House considers the bills and particularly the over 200 pre-filed amendments on SB1.  

The Texas House of Representatives’ passage last Friday of HB 1927, a bill that would effectively allow for the unlicensed carry of handguns in most public places in Texas, was quickly followed by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s comments to the press this week that, as of now, there isn’t enough support in the Texas Senate to act on the bill. In the wake of some police organizations’ high-profile opposition to allowing unlicensed and untrained gun owners to carry weapons in public places (which didn’t persuade the House majority), Patrick’s public decision to push the pause button in part reflects a tension between two prominent themes of recent Republican election campaigns: the promise to “back the blue,” a ubiquitous refrain of campaigns up and down the ballot in 2020, and the full-throated defense of an ever-expansive view of the Second Amendment.

With the Texas House of Representatives’ passage of HB 1927, which would enable most Texans over the age of 21 to carry a handgun in public without training or a permit, Texas is in line to become by far the most populous, most urban, and so the most significant state to enact a policy that only a few years ago was seen as a fringe (or at least a longshot) conservative cause, even among the state’s long-hegemonic Republicans. While one might be tempted to embrace the views of social media conservatives that the majority has finally exerted its will over the feckless RINOs and sell-outs in the Texas Republican Party, public opinion data reveals that the opposite is playing out in the legislature on gun policy: the aggressive minority of conservatives is, for the moment, driving the agenda on guns. 

The most recent Texas Politics Project statewide poll included job approval ratings for Texas elected officials and President Joe Biden, as well as some policy-related approval items for several leaders. We’ve gathered them in one place for reference below, with selected crosstabs and trend items where available.