The Mood in the State as (Some) Texans Vote in Primary Run-Offs

While we should expect only a very small fraction of the eligible electorate, or even of registered voters, to show up for run-off elections, there is a pretty good crop of run-off races for party nominations (and, in Central Texas, a special election to file the seat of its departed-for-Houston former State Senator, Kirk Watson). The most consequential single race is the run-off for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn in the fall, but there are also 15 Congressional, 16 state legislative, and 8 statewide seats (including judicial races).

This is a historically uncertain and tumultuous run-off environment, which has contributed to the trend of turnout above expected baselines. (It doesn’t make much sense to imply in any way that the percentages below are “high” in any other than a relative sense.) Per the reliable Jeff Blaylock at Texas Election Source:

More than 1M Texans have participated in runoff elections for just the third time since 1990 (2012, 2014). The number of Democratic runoff voters will almost certainly eclipse the 747K who voted in 1994 to become the highest total since 1990, when 1.1M voted in the gubernatorial runoff. Despite not having a statewide race, the number of Republican runoff voters is expected to be the third highest in state history, trailing only 2014 (1.4M) and 2012 (1.1M).

The composition of the electorate is the big unknown here, which has made any early public polling in these races difficult, and, in particular, has contributed to making the public polling in the U.S. Senate run-off a pretty speculative enterprise. But we do have a lot of data from the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll conducted very recently (June 19-29), as well as a lot of comparison and trend data, to illustrate the volatile and generally worried mood of the electorate.

The tension between taking measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the state and the economic toll of these measures is a fundamental tension taking on increasingly partisan dimensions.

Expectations that the pandemic will be a longer-term problem have set in when compared to the early days, when the pandemic was less severe in Texas than in the first wave of states in the U.S. afflicted with the virus, and less widespread overall.

Texans’ assessments of the state’s efforts to contain the spread the virus are heading in the wrong direction as case counts climb along with hospitalizations and deaths.

Texans’ assessments of the direction of the state have grown more negative, and the right direction/wrong track estimate in June was in net-negative territory for the first time since May 2012. Partisanship still exerts a strong force over all of these assessments: Republican ratings remain largely positive, though they have declined; Democrats’ ratings have gone from bad to worse.

When asked to focus more specifically on the economy, Texans as a group are unable to ignore the severe downturn in the economy over the course of the pandemic, it’s economic fallout, and the coincident collapse in oil prices that have had major economic effects in Texas.

Texans report also that their personal economic conditions have worsened or stalled since the pandemic and its effects have taken hold of the state.

The long-established pattern in which the couplet of immigration and border security top the charts in Texans’ views of the most important problem facing the state has been disrupted somewhat by the pandemic. But the origin in Republican attitudes of the dominance that immigration has displayed in Texans’ minds as measured in this item remains apparent when the results are broken down by party identification. Don’t underestimate the potential for nativism and/or white ethnic nationalism to remain a force in Republican primary politics amidst the turmoil of the pandemic. The eyes of Texas remain on these issues.

As the country engages in the most sustained discussion of racism, history, and national identity in the U.S. in half a century, Texans as a group appear cautiously positive yet still ambivalent about whether their state’s increasing diversity should be a cause for optimism or concern.

The growth of the state’s population is one of the factors fueling more competitive races in the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas of the state – in particular, in those areas  experiencing population increases due to their proximity to one of Texas’ large cities. Many congressional and legislative districts in these areas were designed to combine slivers of urban areas with suburban and exurban neighborhoods in the aggressively pro-Republican redistricting that took place after the 2010 census, and are now more competitive as a result of population growth and the resulting Demographic changes. On the whole, Texans are somewhat ambivalent about this population growth.

John Cornyn has never enjoyed overwhelmingly positive job approval ratings in Texas, largely due to a persistent (but declining) share of voters with no opinion of him. However, as more Texans have become acquainted with the state’s senior senator, both his approval and disapproval ratings have increased, with 40% disapproving in June polling (up from 36% in April) and 36% approving.

Cornyn’s potential Democratic opponents, M.J. Hegar and State Senator Royce West, are far less known to the Texas electorate however. Among Democrats, 38% held a favorable impression of Hegar, while 29% held a favorable impression of West. Overall, 53% and 66% of Democrats couldn’t offer a positive or negative opinion of Hegar or West, respectively.

And of course, like everything else political in 2020, President Trump looms over even a low turnout run-off election. The partisan structure in his approval ratings have held steady, and, despite it all, there is very little erosion of his support among Republicans. It would take a lot of insensitivity to risk to break with the president at this moment, especially for local candidates with little political capital, and little ownership over statewide policy. The stakes here, however, are different for statewide candidates not on the ballot, and with constitutional responsibility to look out for the public’s health and welfare.