Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have halved former President Donald Trump’s lead in Texas in the first nationwide poll since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
According to the poll by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs and the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University, Harris is only five points behind Trump.
Renée Cross, senior editor of Hobby School, reported further findings from the survey to the Standard.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:
Texas Standard: When was this last poll conducted? Give us details.
Renee Cross: This poll was conducted between August 5 and August 16 with 1,365 likely voters in Texas, and 878 of those likely voters were actually interviewed by us earlier this summer, so we have a good look at changes among those same likely voters.
Does this change seem to be coming from a particular population group or region?
Yes, we see that Generation Z is extremely happy with this new change. Compared to Biden, Harris gains 16 points among Generation Z.
Women have turned to Harris. Previously, Trump led likely female voters in Texas. Now they favor Harris by six percentage points. Since the summer poll, we’ve also seen a shift among independent voters toward Harris.
What do you attribute to this tighter election here in Texas? How significant do you think it is compared to what you’re seeing in other states or nationally?
In fact, it’s very similar to what we’re seeing nationally, which in itself is, I think, somewhat of a surprise. There’s no doubt that Texas is a red state, but just this change at the top of the ballot – again, in a very short period of time – suggests some momentum for the Democrats.
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I understand that you also asked about the closely watched Senate race here in Texas between Ted Cruz and Democrat Colin Allred – are there any changes there?
In fact, it’s very similar to what we saw earlier in the summer. Right now, Senator Cruz is ahead by 46.6 points. Allred is ahead by 44.5 points. So Senator Cruz is only two points ahead, which is again consistent with what we saw earlier in the summer.
That’s not the kind of spread you’d expect from a long-term incumbent, so I think that’s going to be the race to watch in Texas.
Of course, we are now on the last day of the Democratic National Convention. And we should reiterate that this poll was conducted earlier this summer, so we don’t yet know exactly how this convention will play out in terms of the numbers in Texas. But does this give any indication of how this might be received and what impact this might have here in Texas?
Traditionally, conventions give candidates a boost, and I think that will be especially true this year, simply because of all the excitement surrounding Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Were there any other surprises that you noticed in this survey?
I would say popularity. We also asked about the popularity of leading candidates and incumbents, and Colin Allred, Governor (Greg) Abbott and Lieutenant Governor (Dan) Patrick had by far the highest net popularity ratings.
For Harris, however, her numbers have been rising significantly recently. When we did this in June, her popularity was -14. Now it’s -3. That’s the overall net popularity.
Her approval ratings are over 48%. Trump’s are at 49%. So Harris’ numbers look pretty good in the Republican state of Texas too.
