Former Pres. Trump leads Harris by narrowing margin for Texas voters: UH/TSU survey
HOUSTON - A recent survey of likely voters in Texas indicates nearly half plan to vote for former Republican President Donald Trump in the upcoming November election, with 49.5% expressing support for him. Meanwhile, 44.6% of respondents say they will back Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s support has increased slightly from 48.9% in June, but Harris has made significant gains, reducing Trump’s lead to just under five points. This is a considerable tightening compared to the nine-point advantage Trump held over President Joe Biden in a previous survey conducted by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston and the Executive Master of Public Administration program at Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan – Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs.
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"Harris has made considerable headway among voters both in Texas and nationally in the short time since she entered the race last month," said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School. "That’s particularly true among younger voters, with 55% of Gen Z voters saying they will support her, compared to just 39% who backed Biden. She also has gained among women and independent voters."
Despite Harris’s gains, Texas remains a red state where Trump, holds a strong lead among men, white voters, and older voters. However, among Latino voters, Trump’s lead over Harris is slim, at 47% to 46%., a notable shift from 2020, when Texas Latinos favored Biden over Trump by a 17-point margin.
A second-wave survey followed President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race and Harris’s subsequent nomination. The survey reinterviewed a significant portion of respondents from the June survey while adding new participants to ensure a representative sample.
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Mark P. Jones, a political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, noted that while Trump remains the dominant figure in Texas politics, the race has become more competitive. "What had been a stable race, with Trump leading Biden by a margin in the high single digits for months, has tightened," he said. "Support has declined for third-party candidates, especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped to 2% in this survey from 5% in June, with more than twice as many of Kennedy’s former supporters switching their votes to Harris than to Trump."
According to the survey, only 2.7% of likely Texas voters remain undecided in the presidential race. Michael Adams, director of the Executive Master of Public Administration program at TSU, attributes much of Harris’s increased support to gains among independent voters, many of whom previously backed Kennedy or Stein. "Independent voters in Texas are fairly evenly split between Trump and Harris, at 41% vs. 39%," Adams said. "In June, with Biden still in the race, we found that 42% of Independents favored Trump, while just 18% supported Biden. It appears that a substantial portion of the third-party vote in part reflected a desire for another candidate, and Harris has provided that."
The survey also revealed the following key findings:
- Harris is drawing more women voters away from Trump, leading 50% to 44%. In June, Trump led Biden among women by four points, 46% to 42%. However, Trump holds an 18-point lead over Harris among men, 56% to 38%.
- The race appears stable, with 96% of Harris voters and 92% of Trump voters certain about their choice, with only 4% and 8%, respectively, considering changing their minds before the election.
- Harris’s net favorability rating has improved significantly since June, now standing at -3% (48% favorable, 51% unfavorable), compared to -14% in June.
- Trump’s net favorability rating remains relatively unchanged at -1% (49% favorable, 50% unfavorable).
The survey, conducted in English and Spanish from August 5-16, has a margin of error of +/-2.65%.