Public Policy Polling’s newest Texas survey finds that John Cornyn has basically no profile in Texas. Only 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 34% with an unfavorable one and a 39% plurality don’t have any opinion about him one way or the other. The numbers when it comes to his job approval are similar-29% approve, 33% disapprove, and 38% have no opinion.
Cornyn’s lack of a profile with Texans make him susceptible to the overall political winds in the state, and those are blowing the wrong way for Republicans right now. Only 46% of voters approve of the job Donald Trump is doing to 51% who disapprove, and Joe Biden leads him by 2 points at 48-46.
Cornyn starts out with the lead over likely general election opponent MJ Hegar 42-35. But when you dig into the undecideds (23% of the electorate) for Senate, 59% of them are voting for Biden to only 25% who are voting for Trump. In an era where ticket splitting is less and less of a thing, those people are likely to end up voting the same party for Senate as President. If the undecideds broke that way, Hegar would have the slightest of leads over Cornyn. This is likely to be a highly competitive race.
Our first Hegar-Cornyn poll of 2020 bears a strong resemblance to our first Beto O’Rourke- Ted Cruz poll of 2018. In that poll Cruz lead 45-37, an 8 point lead similar to Cornyn’s starting out point. We pinpointed then that the race might end up close because Cruz had just a 38% favorability rating- and that’s a lot better than the 27% Cornyn starts out with here.
After O’Rourke won the nomination and became better known over the course of the year, he was able to build the race into a tossup. Hegar (who currently has just 34% name recognition) is likely to do the same in the months ahead if she wins the nomination.
PPP surveyed 729 Texas voters on June 24th and 25th on behalf of EMILY’s List. The survey was conducted half by calls to landlines and half by texts to cell phones, and the margin of error is +/-3.6%. Full toplines here
