While a more comprehensive analysis of the 2016 nominating race awaits the public release of the data and crosstabs from the November 2015 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll next week, the weekend pause in the Texas Tribune release schedule invites a few initial observations on the first wave of results. Expect much more discussion (and evidence)  next week when the entire data set is released.

1. In the trial ballots for the  2016 GOP presidential nomination contest, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are tied for the lead with 27 percent each. Trump’s ascension in the UT/TT polls tracks with his national rise since the last poll in June, conducted prior to his announcement. It also suggests the limits of the appeal in Texas of the real estate mogul turned magnate, whose net favorability rating was deeply in the negative, at 32/51, though better among Republicans at 54/31. Based on this poll and some others that have been conducted recently in the state, his Texas ceiling appears not to deviate significantly from his national one, somewhere in the mid-to-high 20’s. On the one hand, this is a good place to be – the candidates in the bottom two-thirds of the list would no doubt be quite happy to be “mired” in the mid-20s in such a crowded field. But Trump’s celebrity-level name recognition (for better or worse) doesn’t leave him much room to grow his appeal at this point. (And see the graphic below with numbers on candidates Republicans and Tea Party identifiers would NOT support.) His tie with Cruz encapsulates a scenario in which the national Trump phenomenon has collided with the entrenched presence of Cruz in Texas. Cruz seems more likely to continue to grow support in his home state: 631,000 Texas Republicans have already had the experience of voting for Cruz in a GOP primary, and 4.4 million have voted for him in a statewide election when Mitt Romney was at the top of the ticket. These are not guaranteed 2016 primary votes, but they are certainly not irrelevant.

2. The much-vaunted field of Texas-connected candidates has been winnowed down to Cruz, who has emerged as the favorite son of Lone Star Republicans. Rick Perry is, of course, out of the race, but the sort-of-news on this front from the latest poll is that if Jeb! Bush’s campaign is to be saved, salvation doesn’t appear to lie within Texas. Bush registered only 4 percent, and can’t even be considered a fallback as he was the second choice of only 6 percent of potential Republican primary voters. Other candidates with Texas ties fared no better: Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul also garnered only 4 percent each. No one should be too surprised that this field hasn’t quite lived up to the hype or that Cruz is the only breakout candidate. Since his successful campaign against former Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, Cruz has been a favorite of the conservative wing of the party, and only a freakish (statistically speaking, more or less) candidate like Trump could be expected to shake their attachment to him. None of the other Texas candidates should have been expected to pose a credible threat, save Jeb!, who now only looked credible on paper and in spreadsheets.

3. Hillary Clinton’s lock on Texas is more secure than ever – don’t be distracted by Bernie Sanders’ increase since June. Yes, Sanders has cultivated a constituency in the party, especially among young and extremely liberal voters. But those groups are small subsets of the Democratic electorate in Texas. Sanders’ increase from 15 percent to 30 percent should be seen largely as an artifact of the winnowing of the Democratic field.  With Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren no longer available as hypothetical options, some Democratic votes (especially for Warren) went to Sanders – but some (including Biden votes) went to Clinton, too.  

4. Among the Republicans in Texas state government, Greg Abbott remains the top dog. His approval numbers are the strongest when compared to the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker, among all Republicans,  but especially among conservatives and Texas Republicans.  One might keep this in mind when considering Abbott's endorsement in the GOP presidential nomination race; and, though it's a ways off and things could change, in the 2018 Republican primary in Texas.

5. Job approval ratings of the Lt. Governor and the Speaker suggest that Republican voters seem happy with their shepherding of the legislature. It’s not a stretch to extend this approval to the output of the 84th legislature, despite the carping of dissident elites (and, of course, Democratic leaders). Dan Patrick’s job approval ratings among conservatives and Tea Party identifiers put him in the net positive range (plus-39, plus-55, respectively), yet his is still in the classic position of a Lt. Governor. As rumors persist about him running against Abbott in the 2018 gubernatorial primary – rumors that he has flatly denied – 44 percent of Texans expressed no opinion of his job performance, including 37 percent of self-identified conservatives. He has run and won statewide and he is a major player in the legislature, but someone else is governor and gets to occupy the bully pulpit by default in a way that frequent press conferences and highly marketed interim charges won’t easily overcome.

6. Speaker Straus remains pretty much where a Speaker wants to be: More than half (52 percent) of Texas voters have no opinion of him. Perhaps more surprising to insiders subjected to the railings of dissident Republicans targeting Straus and the perpetual clucking about challenges to his speakership, Straus is also in net positive territory with conservatives (that is, the ones who may know who he is and what he does). Reminder: The #txlege stream on Twitter is not a representative sample.