Governor Abbot has been doing everything in his power to stave off a right wing challenger — and in the process he’s royally pissed off independents:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has kept conservative primary challengers at bay by tacking hard right on abortion, the border, mask and vaccine mandates, guns and critical race theory.
But the strategy has come at a high price.
His overall support is plunging, potentially leaving him vulnerable to the likes of actor Matthew McConaughey and former congressman Beto O’Rourke, according to a new poll from The Dallas Morning News and University of Texas at Tyler.
A whopping 54% of Texans surveyed think the state is on the wrong track. Just 41% approve of the governor’s job performance.
The poll on state and political issues was conducted Sept. 7-14. It surveyed 1,148 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
In the past two months, McConaughey has gone from slightly behind to 9 percentage points ahead of Abbott in a hypothetical match-up, and O’Rourke has cut the governor’s lead from 12 points to five.
As the state death toll from COVID-19 tops 60,000, Texans are unhappy about many things.
The causes Abbott has championed to endear himself to conservatives and survive the primary have also hardened opposition against him.
“So many issues are on the table,” said pollster Mark Owens, a political scientist at UT-Tyler. “The collective attention of what the state is doing and leading the country on is not even confined to just one message.”
Abbott’s far-ranging 2021 agenda includes a legally provocative ban on abortions as early as six weeks, a dream come true for social conservatives, and a $1 billion commitment of state funds for border wall construction, sure to please Donald Trump and his followers.
The governor’s political fortunes are entwined with these and other equally divisive initiatives.
Of poll respondents who support the right to carry a gun without a permit, or Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, two-thirds think Texas is on the right track. It’s 3-in-5 among those who support Abbott’s ban on vaccine mandates, or the abortion ban.
On the other side, nearly everyone (83%) who disapproves of Abbott’s job performance thinks Texas is on the wrong track. Of Texans who oppose spending state revenue on a border wall, 74% say Texas is on the wrong track.
Even 29% of Abbott supporters are in that camp.
“I don’t know where the bottom is on this,” said Owens.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic began to grip the country in March 2020, Abbott’s approval rating was 59%. It’s been dropping since January and is now at a rock-bottom 41%.
The hard-right agenda has alienated a critical swing bloc. Abbott’s approval among independents has dropped from 53% early last year to just 30% in the new poll — a perilous low.
“The man is a complete idiot. He’s not listening to scientific results [and] he’s initiated his own little war,” said Walter Story, 51, an independent and former paramedic from Sulphur Springs east of Dallas.
Two-thirds of Texas Republicans surveyed support Abbott’s ban on mask mandates by local officials in Dallas and other counties and 76% support his efforts at the border — deploying National Guard and other measures.
But Democrats and independents broadly disapprove of those steps.
“He’s made poor decisions for the state, including diverting money to a wall we do not need that could go to education or food for the hungry. … The man just needs to be out of there,” Story said.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is preparing to run for governor of Texas in 2022, with an announcement expected later this year, Texas political operatives tell Axios.
O’Rourke’s entry would give Democrats a high-profile candidate with a national fundraising network to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — and give O’Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso and 2020 presidential candidate and voting rights activist, a path to a political comeback.
O’Rourke has been calling political allies to solicit their advice, leaving them with the impression that he’s made his decision to run in the country’s second largest state.
“No decision has been made,” said David Wysong, O’Rourke’s former House chief of staff and a longtime adviser. “He has been making and receiving calls with people from all over the state.”
“We hope that he’s going to run,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the state chair of the Democratic Party, told Axios. “We think he’ll be our strongest candidate. We think he can beat Abbott, because he’s vulnerable.”
“His prohibition against mask and vaccination mandates have not gone over well with Texans,” Hinojosa said. “And with the abortion law, Republicans have raised the anger level of Texas woman higher than anyone has ever seen before.”
I don’t know if O’Rourke has a chance. Maybe McConoughey could do better. (Republicans love celebrity politicians apparently, so maybe he’d get some crossovers.) But Abbot has gone so far to the right that he’s fallen off the edge. He could be in trouble.