Nearly a third of Texas voters have no opinion of the job performance of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R), who has been elected statewide five times, as he heads into a re-election campaign. A new Quinnipiac Univ. poll found Cornyn’s net approval rating is +17 (43/26). Cornyn has a better net rating than the better-known U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (51/40) but trails Gov. Greg Abbott’s (58/28) popularity.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn
The poll found a significant gender gap with respect to Cornyn’s job approval. Among men, Cornyn’s net approval rating was +24 (49/25) but just +10 (37/27) among women. A greater proportion of women (36%) than men (26%) said they did not have on opinion of his job performance. Only 10% of Republicans disapproved of Cornyn’s job performance, which would make a primary challenge that much more uphill.
Texans are fairly evenly divided on their opinion of President Trump, with 47% approving his job performance and 50% disapproving. As with Cornyn, a gender gap exists, with Trump receiving a +6 net approval rating among men (51/45) and a -12 among women (42/54). Trump’s net approval rating among young voters is -28 (33/61).
The poll found Texas voters evenly split, 48/48, on whether a wall should be built on the Southern border:
- Independent voters are somewhat more disapproving than approving (43/51). Partisans are predictably supportive (Republicans 87/11) and opposed (Democrats 7/90).
- A significant gender gap exists. Men (53/45) generally support a wall while women (43/52) generally do not.
- Younger voters (33/64) are more likely to oppose the wall than seniors (58/39).
- Hispanic/Latino voters are 2-to-1 opposed (32/65).
Interestingly, 64% of Republicans support “the federal government seizing private property in order to build the wall,” the highest level of support among any group. More Republicans support allowing Dreamers to remain in the U.S. and eventually apply citizenship (51%) than oppose (41%), as do four out of every five voters under age 35.
By a 78/7 margin, voters under age 35 think “immigrants from other cultures have a mainly positive” impact on American society, compared to 51/32 among voters 65 and older.
The poll of 1,222 “Texas voters” using live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones was in the field February 20-25. It has a stated margin of error of ±3.4% (higher for subgroups).
©2019 Texas Election Source LLC
