Talk Elections

Cruz 49
O'Rourke 43

1000 LV from May 29 to June 5, conducted on behalf of End Citizens United.

http://endcitizensunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Texas-Senate-Public-Memo-061418.pdf

about what i expect the final margin to be, but the crosstabs are odd

Yep, Cruz is Safe.

I mean, you think Warren would lose by double digits to Trump, so nobody should take anything you say remotely seriously.

And yet Ohio is only Lean D while Brown is up by 17 in some polls? Hmmmm.

Anyway, Likely R for now. I wouldn't rule out the probability of a VA-SEN 2014 happening here.

ted over

Doesn't really change my view of the race.

It's still Likely R.

Yup. Just like the majority of polls, this is a Cruz lead of mid-to-high single digits. Likely R.

Strange that they oversampled by media market rather than race or age, but it could prove to be a somewhat smart move. For a public internal, this seems like a quality poll.

I agree with this. Texas is Likely Republican under my ratings.

Where are you seeing these crosstabs? Because they're not in the link provided.

Likely R, closer to Lean than Safe. O'Rourke really is running a great campaign so far and could potentially make up that margin, but it's an uphill battle.

Clearly Cruz is as likely to win as Stabenow and Menendez.

#Cruzunder50

Is it a good time to use the meme or not? :P

But the difference is that those two will almost certainly win by double digits, while Cruz will be held to a single-digit margin, probably 6-9 pts. as this poll indicates.

So very likely, then?

Crosstabs are everywhere and always odd. No poll you will ever see has crosstabs that make sense, and if it does have crosstabs that make sense across the board, that is your best guide that it is probably a fake pollster.

Obviously still likely R.

Cruz should win, but he will underperform all other statewide Republicans substantially.

This. He seems to be lagging behind Abbott by at least 13 points. That is a very considerable gap. I truly do wonder: why is Ted Cruz so weak this year, compared to others?

People think he's a dick.

He is much weaker than Abbott, and Beto is much stronger than Valdez. Also, Texas is usually bluer (comparatively) on the federal than state level. Plus he gaffes up so often, while Beto is comparatively fleek, and Valdez has tons of scandals, but Abbott is relatively fleek.

The fact that there are still people who believe that Menendez is even remotely vulnerable is sad.

I see. That makes sense. Abbott seems like a reasonable Governor to me, but Cruz is an unlikable charlatan and a ideological extremist. If I were a Texas voter, I would be splitting my ticket.

Yeah, but if Sherrod Brown was only up 6 he wouldn't be?

He holds the bible high, and he lies!

Fact check: True!

Also O'Rourke and Abbott are relatively local guys who are mostly all about Texas, while Cruz is part of the DC Swamp, and Valdez has held several dalliances with the federal party and was doing some things that really had little to do with her much needed role of saving our dilapidated law enforcement departments and weak morale and jail infrastructure (like working on federal immigration task forces with Obama) while only partially improving conditions here locally. I think she was a decent to good sheriff, but she had the potential to do more and be much better, but a lot of those times she was just hanging out with the national party. Just a general breakdown that you could classify O'Rourke and Abbott as the Texan guys, while Cruz and Valdez kind of cared about Texas, but really had higher less local ambitions all along, and substantially more swampier.

FTFY

I see. Thank you for this analysis. Now it makes sense to me as to why these races are shaping up as they are. Even though Cruz will win in the end, I do hope that this year will begin laying the foundations for a political change in Texas in the near future, at least on the federal level.

Np, yeah things are changing in Texas.

Why can't Cruz be very vulnerable? He spent most of his first term ginning up a failed run for President. He shut down the government once over Obamacare, yet it is still the law of the land even though his party controls Congress and the White House. So there's a strike against him with the base. Oh, wait there's more; people like Obamacare now. A lot. So there's a strike against him with independents. Not only that, he's an unlikeable toad with weak approval ratings in his own state. There's also a child detention camp crisis brewing in Texas, thanks to a President that is unpopular in Texas. There's a border trade with Mexico crisis brewing in Texas, thanks to a President that is unpopular in Texas. And an agriculture-focused China tariff crisis brewing in Texas, thanks to.. you get the idea.

All of this stuff doesn't add up to a comfortable Cruz win. Nobody should be shocked if Beto pulls this off or the spread comes down to a few percentage points.

It's Texas.

*rolls eyes*

George Allen isn't in danger. It's Virginia.

Currently here's what I think will happen:

1% chance of a Cruz 20+ point win
2% chance of a Cruz 15-19 point win
7% chance of a Cruz 10-14 point win
45% chance of a Cruz 5-9 point win
20% chance of a Cruz 0-4 point win
15% chance of a Beto 0-4 point win
6% chance of a Beto 5-9 point win
3% chance of a Beto 10-14 point win
1% chance of a Beto 15+ point win

Yes, possibly, but do remember that Texas is (by and large, there are very notable exceptions) a relatively socially conservative state. This factor is quite divisive, and quite possibly will be enough to drive enough people to the polls to shut out a Beto win. If the Democrats were running someone in the mold of Conor Lamb, then I'd say Cruz would be truly vulnerable.

Though we're still months away, so anything can happen.

Democrats won the 1994 Senate race in VA and they won the 2001 and 2005 governors races. The TX Democrats can presently only dream of similar successes. Governor Tony Sanchez and Chris Bell say hi!
Cruz is in danger of a close race. He's not in that much danger of losing.

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BL4OEMU8tk

2 months before the midterms of 1994; in the Texas gubernatorial race, Ann Richards was leading Bush 47% to 43% with 10% saying they did not know who they would vote for if the election was held today. Furthermore Bush was still considered a long shot victory then:


It would not be far-fetched for Cruz to somehow lose in the end or barely make it across in the end.

If somehow Latinos actually bothered to turnout or with all the demographic/generational changes coupled with the terrible national environment under Trump came together in a perfect mix then its possible for Cruz to loze.

We should have gotten Cuellar.

What I mean is that Cruz isn't really vulnerable right now, because Texas is still hostile territory to Democrats. Even with all the stuff he listed, Cruz has gotten decent leads so yeah, that's why I think he'll end up winning.

Could he become vulnerable? I do think there is a possibility, and I've been saying for quite some time that O'Rourke could get a good % of the vote, at least better than any Democrat in recent memory. But if things keep going like they are right now, he'll probably still lose.

Cornyn isn't losing

Probably a good sign for Cruz if this is the best a Democratic internal can do

FTFY

You do realize Cruz is only leading by 6, whereas Sherrod Brown, who you think is very vulnerable, is leading by 18?

'very vulnerable' is an exaggeration. I have Sherrod favored to win. Furthermore, I simply don't believe there are enough votes to elect a Democrat in Texas regardless of the environment.

Cruz is going to win by 9-12 points.

This is basically my viewpoint. While I think O'Rourke will do better than any Democrat has done in a statewide election in Texas in many years, Cruz is still going to win, and probably by a margin of ~5-9 points, as this poll indicates. I consider Ohio to be Likely Democratic, probably close to Safe Democratic at this point.

Wait a second, this is an internal? Now I'm more skeptical of it.

If Alabama can send a Democrat to the Senate, then so can Texas. Don't be dense.

If Brown is leading so largely in Ohio and if Cruz is not polling so well in Texas, then that gives a good reason for the Democrats to focus more of their efforts on Texas than Ohio, which could give them hope in Texas.

I agree with you here. Texas could elect O'Rourke, but things would have to go really well for the Democrats for this to happen. And keep in mind that the only reason why Jones won in Alabama was because of Roy Moore's pedophilia. If Jones had faced a Generic Republican (i.e. Mo Brooks or Luther Strange), he would not have won the election. Something similar would have to happen to Ted Cruz for O'Rourke to win.