Listen
The Lyceum Poll from the University of Texas asked likely voters if they would vote for Governor Perry if he were to run again two years from now. Eighteen percent said yes. Thirty percent said no. And more than half said they would have to wait and see who’s running against him. Brandon Rottinghaus is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Houston. He says the reluctance among voters comes from the governor’s poor performance during his presidential bid.
“And so I tend to think that that kind of public failure tended to create in peoples’ minds some doubts about whether he could continue to be a good governor.”
Rottinghaus says he expects Perry to focus heavily on education and immigration during next year’s legislative session, in an attempt to rehabilitate his image before he has to decide whether to seek another term.
Meanwhile, in the race for U.S. Senate, Republican Ted Cruz leads Democrat Paul Sadler 50 to 24 percent. A significant chunk of voters — 26 percent — say they haven’t even thought about the race enough to form an opinion.
Rottinghaus says one explanation for the lack of interest comes from the Republicans’ dominance in Texas.
“And that’s likely to trickle down to the Senate races, and several House races — depending on the nature of the House race. So I think a lot of people probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what is, essentially, a non-competitive race.”
Rottinghaus also points out that this is still relatively early in the Senate race. He predicts polls taken after last night’s senatorial debate, and the senatorial debate coming up on October 19th, will show fewer undecided voters.
