Baselice Survey: Republican pollster Mike Baselice released a two-page memo summarizing key findings from his May 2018 Texas Voter Survey, which was conducted for Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC. Some notable data points:
- Greg Abbott (R) had the highest net favorability rating of the six candidates and officeholders tested (55/26).
- S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R) leads U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso), 48%-36%. Libertarian candidate Neal Dikeman is the choice of 3% while 11% are undecided.
- Cruz’s net favorability is 50/39. O’Rourke’s is 28/13, and two out of every five respondents have “never heard of” him.
- Gen. Ken Paxton (R) leads Justin Nelson (D), 45%-33%. Libertarian candidate Michael Ray Harris was selected by 6% of respondents. Nearly one out of every six respondents was undecided.
- The large number of undecideds may be a function of relative low name ID among the candidates. More than a quarter of respondents have “never heard of” Paxton (whose favorability rating was otherwise 31/19) and more than three out of every five respondents have “never heard of” Nelson (11/5).
- Asked about a generic ballot for Court of Criminal Appeals, 47% of respondents said they would vote for a Republican candidate, and 38% would vote for the Democrat.
Crosstabs were not provided. However, Baselice concluded “these double-digit leads come from a combination of a Republican-leaning electorate and the current advantage GOP officeholders enjoy among their base voters relative to that of their Democratic opponents.”
The poll of 601 “randomly selected voters” was in the field May 21-28 and was conducted via landline (50%) and mobile device (50%). Its stated margin of error is ±4.1%.
CD7: Democratic challenger Lizzie Pannill Fletcher’s campaign said she raised more than $1M during the second quarter, which means she has raised about $750K since May 22 Democratic runoff. The campaign says she will report having $800K on hand. Fletcher has raised roughly $2.4M for the 2017-18 election cycle. As of March 31, U.S. Rep. John Culberson (R-Houston) had raised $1.3M for the election cycle and had $921K on hand.
CD27: U.S. Rep.-elect Michael Cloud (R-Victoria) is expected to be sworn in to office on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
Kaufman Co.: Early voting begins Saturday for the July 21 re-run of a tied Republican primary for county court-at-law judge between incumbent Dennis Jones and challenger Tracy Gray. The tie arose out of a challenge filed by Gray following her one-vote loss on primary night. A visiting judge ordered a provisional ballot be counted, tying the race, certified six provisional ballots that would have given Gray a two-vote lead and threw out five mail-in ballots for which none of the witnesses could recall who they voted for in the race.
©2018 Texas Election Source LLC
