Texas (Rasmussen)
Link
Approve 50% (37% strongly) / Disapprove 49% (40% strongly)
Dave
Bottom Line: Obama will not win TX in 2012 ...
He can, but some things have to change.
The last Democratic Presidential nominee to win Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Bill Clinton's ideology was much like that of Jimmy Carter and was even from a neighboring State and did not win. (All right, the Arkansas/Texas border is short by Texas standards... but Hope, Arkansas is very close to the Texas/Arkansas state line.
Should Obama win Texas, he wins it in at least an Eisenhower-scale landslide.
While I think it is relatively unlikely that Obama will win Texas in '12, that poll is far from a sign that he can't. Historically, there has been a very very strong correlation between where an incumbent's approval rating is in relation to the 50% mark and their margin of victory/defeat. Barring a remarkably strong or poor candidate on the other side, it's basically a referendum on the incumbent. Bush's approval rating in exit polls in 2004 was 53%, he won by 3 points. If you split the (somewhat large number of) undecideds evenly, Clinton's approval rating in polls right before the 96 election is almost exactly 58.5%, and he won by 8 1/2 points. Again, I wouldn't put any money on it, but if Obama is at a high-ebb of popularity in November 2012, he certainly CAN win TX.
