On Wednesday, Quinnipiac released a poll showing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz leading Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke by only three points. Democrats have been hoping that O’Rourke would be the candidate who finally delivers them from their Lone Star drought (Democrats haven’t won a senate seat or gubernatorial election there since 1990) and turns Texas purple—or even blue. And some on the GOP side might worry that this poll is the first sign that they’re right—and that not even the second place finisher in the 2016 presidential primary is safe.
But the GOP shouldn’t panic. Texas still looks like a likely Republican hold.
The fundamentals favor Cruz. Trump won Texas by 9 points in 2016, and Romney won it by 16 points in 2012. That’s a lot of padding for the GOP—enough to potentially withstand a Democratic wave. And in a simple model that looks at national presidential approval, statewide partisanship, candidate quality, and incumbency suggests that if Trump is at 42 percent approval nationally on Election Day, Cruz has a roughly 80 percent chance of holding his seat. An 80 percent chance isn’t a guarantee and Trump’s approval rating could fall, but these numbers suggest that this race is “Likely Republican” rather than a “Toss-up.”
Maybe more importantly, the golden rule of polling is to never overreact to one poll—especially when you only have one poll. Pollsters make a variety of different choices on how they collect and process their data, and these choices can lead to different outcomes. And all pollsters (even those who make the best methodological choices and have a long record of accurate predictions) are subject to the random error associated with any survey. The Quinnipiac poll is the only recent public poll in this race (the campaigns have released some polls, but there are reasons to be skeptical of them), but one poll isn’t enough to determine the exact state of the race. When more polls come out, we’ll be able to aggregate them to get a better sense of what’s really going on.
More broadly, both Democrats and Republicans too readily accept the conventional wisdom on Texas. The narrative is that Texas is a red state now, but the growing Hispanic population is slowly pushing the state to the center and will eventually turn it blue. But so far, events haven’t followed the script. On the presidential level, Texas became more Republican for most of the 1990s and held steady in the 2000s as Democrats lost ground with white voters. In 2016, the state took a leftward leap, but that seemed to be powered by college-educated white voters shifting towards Clinton, rather than a surge in Hispanic turnout.
It’s possible that future polls will confirm Quinnipiac’s picture and that Cruz will face a tight race, or even lose. But for now, he still looks strong. The fundamentals favor him and no major handicapper rates the race as a toss-up. RealClearPolitics has the race as only “Leans Republican” but Cook and Sabato have it at “Likely Republican” and Inside Elections puts it at “Solid Republican.”
And maybe more importantly, if Cruz runs a closer than expected race, it won’t conclusively prove that Texas is a purple or blue state. The popular narrative about Texas has real holes, and Trump’s unpopularity, not demographic destiny, will likely be Cruz’s biggest headache in 2018.
