Texas Lyceum: Perry +5

Press Release Here.

Executive Summary: Here


The numbers:

Goober:

Perry: 48%
White: 43%
Glass: 5%
Undic: 3%
Shafto: 1%


Lite Goober:

Dewhurst: 47%
Chavez-Thompson: 30%
Undecided: 12%


Attorney General:

Abbott: 56%
Radnofsky: 29%
Undecided: 11%



Takeaways:


1. Good news and bad news for White. He's just outside the margin for error (good news) but the number of undecideds is plunging rapidly. He's running out of voters to woo.

2. Much will be made of this, because it's from Texas Lyceum, and the sample size of registered voters (416) is close to what Rasmussen's been sampling with similar(ish) results (Rasmussen has been Perry +6 or 7). That Public Strategies poll that had Perry ahead by 14 had 704 likely voters so who knows? Without seeing the cross-tabs, question order etc. it's all pretty much a crap-shoot. Still, the Lyceum poll holds some weight, with journalists, especially with the major editorial boards and shops like The Bill White Texas Tribune, who are now really praying for a White rally.

3. It's the top of the ballot and.....Not much else really. Despite being comparatively well-funded (for a down-ballot Democrat) it looks as if Radnofsky is skipping over into Chris Bell land. Chavez-Thompson never had a chance, these results prove that out. Dewhurst hasn't even campaigned and he's in double digits.

4. The Tea Party is breaking Republican. If they didn't...say, if they formed their own party, (Which the unusual Lyceum questions seems to imply they could do in future elections -just as the GOP and the Tea Parties move closer to one another FWIW) The Democrats would win just about everything, even in a Red State like Texas. Now you know why there was so much hope among Democrats that they would break off.

5. Campaign obituaries aside, White's victory window is getting smaller by the day. While it appears his attacks on the Texas Enterprise and Emerging Technology funds are gaining some traction, it doesn't look like it will be enough to create any deep fissures in Perry's base of support. In the end I still see it as Perry by 6 or 7, and none of the other down-ballot races all that close.*









*One caveat to that: The RR Commissioner's race. It seems that the conventional wisdom is that Weems is the superior candidate, even among some Republicans. The inexplicable loss of Victor Carillo in the primary could hand the Democrats their first Statewide win since W's time.