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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump insisted Monday that he’s ahead in Texas – a state he can’t win reelection without – despite a new Dallas Morning News poll that shows he lags by 5 points and other recent polls showing him tied with Democrat Joe Biden.
“We’re many points up in Texas,” he told reporters at the White House. “Fake news. Phony polls.”
But GOP strategists took the latest survey seriously.
Economic woes and unease over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic have taken a toll. With less than four months to go before Election Day, signs point to a struggle or even, to some Democrats, a potential rout that would end GOP control in the White House, U.S. Senate and state Legislature.
“The president’s in a serious battle in the state of Texas. It’s not your poll. It’s not the CBS poll. It’s the last nine polls that show that it’s not a slam dunk,” said Dave Carney, Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief strategist. “Is he going to lose it? Probably not, but it’s certainly a state that’s going to take significant effort to ensure we win.
“It’s a competitive political environment in the country, and Texas is not safe for anybody,” he said.
The News/University of Texas at Tyler poll published on Sunday showed Trump slipping significantly among registered voters, from a tie three months earlier.
For decades, Republicans running for president could afford to put their time and money elsewhere. And Democrats didn’t bother, given the high cost of mounting a serious statewide effort in a state with 20 media markets, including some of the nation’s most expensive in Dallas and Houston.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, seeking a fourth term in November, taunted Democrats to “come on down!”
“Part of me would like to see Democrats squander their resources in a losing effort here,” he tweeted in response to The News poll.
It’s already happening. Tens of millions of dollars will flow into Texas this fall from dozens of Democratic groups and allies hoping to flip the White House, Cornyn’s seat and the state House.
Biden’s allies in Texas have been pressing him to go big in Texas. He’s resisted so far, even as Trump has devoted an inordinate amount of time in Texas for an incumbent Republican. He held a discussion on policing last month at a North Dallas megachurch that had many trappings of a campaign appearance. And he’ll be in Odessa later this month to raise $10 million, and shore up support in West Texas.
“There’s still time to jump in,” said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, who has been lobbying the Biden team. “I think they’re carefully evaluating it.”
The Latino Victory Fund have launched a “Latinos con Biden” effort targeting five battlegrounds in Texas. President Nathalie Rayes noted that the number of Latino voters in Texas jumped 800,000 from 2014 to 2018, up nearly 75%.
“For them to say that Texas is not in play, I mean, we just have to look at the 2018 elections. Absolutely it’s in play,” she said.
“I really do think that Biden could win Texas, and I didn’t think that as recently as even a month ago. But the landscape has shifted so much,” said Nancy Beck Young, chair of the University of Houston history department and a scholar of Texas politics.
She cited nationwide protests over racism and police brutality since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and concerns about the pandemic that have spread into rural Texas, sparking anxiety for anyone with a relative in a city or suburbia, or a child in college.
“Americans are starting to realize that the federal government plays an important role and are less sympathetic to the conservative Republican/tea party anti-government message,” Young said, adding that this shift shows up in polls as demand for a better response to the pandemic, and growing support for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
The last Republican nominee to lose Texas was President Gerald Ford in 1976. With 38 electoral votes, it’s the only prize big enough to counter Democratic dominance in California and New York, and Republicans have no way to win the White House without keeping Texas in their column.
A CBS News survey released on Sunday showed Trump ahead in Texas by 1 percentage point.
“They’re phony polls. They’re suppression polls,” Trump said Monday during an event on law enforcement. “To think that after saving the oil and gas business and millions and millions of jobs, I’m leading Texas by [only] one point? I don’t think so.”
The polls were still top of mind for Trump when he joined a Monday night call with supporters of West Texas congressional candidate Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, on the eve of a GOP primary runoff. “Texas is going to be very strong for us, for all of us, as it was in 2016,” he said.
The Trump campaign’s national press secretary, Hogan Gidley, specifically critiqued The News poll earlier on Fox Business News.
“It’s another bad poll, another suppression poll trying to keep Republicans, you know, depressed. But it’s not going to work,” he said, asserting that the poll gave too much weight to Democrats and not enough to Republicans, compared to turnout in 2016.
Young, who was not involved in the poll, took issue with that.
She noted that Biden’s 5-point lead closely tracks dissatisfaction with the pandemic response, and that when the margin of error for this and other polls are taken into account, “that 5-point Biden lead is not a fluke.”
UT-Tyler political scientist and pollster Mark Owen noted that the methodology was somewhat different. CBS conducted its survey online. UT-Tyler reached voters both online and by phone.
Owen also noted that the percentage of voters who trust Trump to keep their community safe (42%) almost exactly matches the number who would vote for him (41%) over Biden (46%).
Trust and fear are the twin factors driving the election at this point, he said, and the number of undecided voters is dwindling.
“I don’t want to say that Biden doesn’t have room to grow. But he’s starting from a very impressive position,” Owen said.
When a reporter asked whether next month’s GOP convention in Jacksonville can proceed as planned, given Florida’s surge in COVID-19 cases, Trump said that “we’re going to do something that will be great.” He immediately pivoted to “great” poll numbers he’s seen recently, quickly adding that polls showing him in a weak position in Texas and Georgia are “suppression polls” meant to undermine enthusiasm among his supporters.
“We’re doing well in Texas. I’ve read where I was 1 point up in Texas. I’m not one point up in Texas. We’re many points up. I saved the oil industry,” he told reporters. “We would have had millions of people out of work. I saved it. And then they say I’m leading by 1 point in Texas. They said it last time. They said Texas is too close to call — this was like three months before the election. And then I won Texas in a blowout.”
In fact, all but one public poll in 2016 showed Trump, once he became the nominee, ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton in Texas. The two polls taken three months before the election showed him ahead by 11 points and 6 points – not too close to call. Polls after Labor Day showed him leading by anything from 3 to 13 points.
Trump ended up winning in Texas by 9 points, a comfortable margin but also the worst showing for a Republican since Ford’s defeat in 1976.
“Poll after poll shows the same result: Texas is the biggest battleground state and Trump is in a dogfight with Joe Biden,” said Texas Democratic Party spokesman Abhi Rahman.