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More on the Texas Senate Contest

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  In the last post, I provided a look at partisan and independents' preferences in the Texas Senate contest among Republican Ken Paxton, Democrat James Talarico, and Libertarian Ted Brown. This post considers the preferences of Texas registered voters according to sex, ethnicity, and age. The chart depicts the crosstabs from the August Texas Poll Report. What are the key takeaways?  There are interesting results in each category. Let's work our way down the chart. First, among the age categories, Paxton is preferred by nearly a majority of Texas registered voters who are 65 years of age or older. Talarico trails, however, by only 4 percent. Also, the elderly are the least likely to be not sure. As the age categories become younger, Talarico's percentage becomes equal to Paxton's percentage among Texas registered voters who are between 30 and 64 years of age. Among the youngest category, Talarico has nearly a majority. Second, among the five ethnic categories, Paxton doe...
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The U.S. Senate Contest in Texas

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  Recently, The Texas Poll Report provided voting preferences of a sample of Texas registered voters. This post relates to the preferences of Texas registered voters in the U.S. Senate race among Republican Ken Paxton, Democrat James Talarico, and Libertarian Ted Brown. Since partisanship places a central role in a person's vote choice, I'll first display a Table depicting the partisan identities of the sample. According to the poll, 42 percent of registered Texans are strong or weak Republicans; 30 percent are strong or weak Democrats, and the remaining 28 percent are pure Independents or Independents who lean toward one of the two major parties. Note that I have placed the "leaners" with the Independents. With this distribution in mind, who do Texas registered voters favor in the  November General Election to replace Republican John Coryn in the U.S. Senate? There are several takeaways from the preferences displayed above: Strong Republicans are less supportive of t...
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What To Take from the Democratic Candidate's Win in the SD 9 Special Election Runoff Election

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  The Facts: The Democratic Party’s candidate won decisively over the Republican Party’s candidate in a runoff election in Texas’ SD 9, which was vacated by Kelly Hancock when he became acting Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The total vote was 94,880 votes, of which Taylor Rehmet won 54,280 votes to Leigh Wambsganss’ 40,600 votes. Rehmet won both the early vote and the Election Day vote decisively. In the 2022 General Election, the last general election in this district, Republican Kelly Hancock won the district decisively: Candidate Party Absentee Voting Early Voting Election Day Voting Total   Kelly Hancock Rep 4,239 110.586 51,864 166,689   Gwenn Burud Dem 4,717 73,364 32,742 110,823   Total Vote   8.956 183,950 84...
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Attitudes on Abortion: United States and Texas

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How different are the attitudes of Texas registered voters from those of the residents of the United States? First, the percentage of Americans who are pro-choice and pro-life is similar to the percentage in Texas. Compare the following:   Recently, James Henson and Joshua Blank, both of the Texas Politics Project , posted an article on the nuanced views of Texas’ registered voters in Texas and concluded:     The presence of nuanced attitudes in both parties or on both “sides” of the abortion debate notwithstanding, the shift in the national legal landscape and the subsequent removal of nearly all access in Texas has put Republicans in a tougher position than Democrats. Looking just at the three choice circumstances, 54% of Republicans would allow some time for abortion access in at least one of the three, including 53% of self-identified conservatives. Voters who identify as “extremely conservative” make up the only group in which a majority (65%) endorses no ex...
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When the Fact Check Isn't . . . .

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Recently, a post on Facebook listed 31 effects of Project 2025, based on the proposals by the project's authors: Mandate for Leadership . The proposals list policy changes that a conservative president should promote. This is the post and the Facebook warning: The fact check was performed by The Dispatch , which boasts that it is "the home for fact-based reporting on politics, policy, world events, religion, culture, economics, and law informed by conservative principles." Meta employs several fact-checkers for content, and The Dispatch is one of them. So, let's check the fact checker. The claim is that the effect of proposals relating to income taxes is to "higher taxes for the working class."   Alex Demas, author of the fact check, rates the statement: “Partly False. Under the plan’s tax proposal, Americans making less than $168,600 would pay a 15 percent income tax. While this rate would be a tax cut for many working Americans, individuals currently in th...
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