Jim Henson

As Texas elected officials debate how to spend a historic budget surplus, the latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll suggests that state leaders’ persistent focus on reducing property tax bills finds a broadly receptive audience in the Texas electorate, even though perennial problems such as border security, school safety, and mental health loom larger in the minds of Texas voters.

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.

While there is plenty of subtext to Gov. Greg Abbott’s state of the state address, the topline takeaways are the items designated as emergencies by the governor, qualifying them for consideration prior to the constitutional prohibition on passing bills during the first 60 days of the legislative session. We posted a lot of public opinion data as broad context going into the governor’s speech, but the unveiling of the much-anticipated emergency items enables a closer look at the public opinion context of the governor’s priorities in his efforts to shape the legislative agenda.

Greg Abbott will deliver the fifth State of the State address from San Marcos Thursday, February 16th, presenting the opportunity to direct public attention to his agenda and to send signals to the Legislature and other state leaders about his legislative priorities. The strongest indication of those priorities will be the subjects he designates as emergency items, which would exempt legislation so designated from the constitutional provision that prohibits both houses from passing bills during the first 60 days of the regular session.

The GOP pushback against business remains one of the underappreciated themes of the 87th Texas Legislature – and one of the most important subplots of the 88th as the legislature shifts into higher gear. From the blacklisting of companies branded with the scarlet letters E-S-G from doing business with the state to the slow-motion demise of Texas's Chapter 313 business incentive program, the tide of conservative legislation aimed at shaping business decisions has upended assumptions about the traditional “pro-business” orientation of Republican governance in the state. Data from recent University of Texas/Texas Politics Project polling suggest that elected Republicans’ efforts to mobilize partisan support with rhetoric and policies that punish business finds support among some Republican voters eager jump on the anti-“woke” dogpile in the short run. But it also activates tensions in the governing GOP coalition.

President Joe Biden is widely expected to use his third State of the Union address to tout legislative achievements in the first two years of his presidency while pointng to historically low unemployment – even as the Federal Reserve continues its efforts to wring price inflation out of an economy still on an uncertain trajectory – and political terrain that is just as uncertain. While the 2022 election proved to be a relative success for Biden compared to the usual (and widely predicted) first mid-term losses experienced by the party of incumbent presidents, Texas voters' assessment of him reflect the political landscape in a state which stayed firmly in Republican hands at the state level in 2022 after voting for loser Donald Trump by a margin of 52.1% to Biden's 46.5% in 2020.

The Texas Politics Project has released the results of the first University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll conducted in the interim between the general election and the kickoff of a Texas legislative session. The poll included a variety of questions about institutions, groups, and actors in Texas as the newly-elected 88th Texas Legislature considers their agenda at a critical time in the state’s history, while also continuing to track trends in Texans’ views of the job performance of elected officials and important problems and issues in the state and country. 

The December 2022 UT/Texas Politics Project Poll adds an 12th assessment of Texans’ attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic to the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, adding to data collected in batteries from polls conducted in April, June, and October of 2020; February, April, June, August and October of 2021, and February, April, June, August, and October of 2022. 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 over the duration of the COVID pandemic.

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.

A look at the geography beneath the status-quo-preserving results of the 2022 Texas election reveal gradual patterns of change that both confirm and confound the received knowledge about the state’s most recent elections and the longer-run trajectory of the state. Looking at the distribution of the vote between the two major parties from among urban, suburban, and rural counties* reveals patterns that are more subtle than the Republican tromping of Democrats in statewide and legislative races might initially suggest.