Texas Hispanic Voter Trends

(Dallas, Texas, November 1) – A year before they could meet in a showdown for the state’s top office, Gov. Greg Abbott and expected Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke are virtually tied, according to new polling from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation (TxHPF).

The poll shows Republican Abbott leading O’Rourke, 44% to 43% among voters who went to the polls in 2020, with the rest of respondents unsure or supporting minor-party candidates. The race is virtually unchanged if actor Matthew McConaughey, whose name has come up in gubernatorial-race speculation, appears on the ballot as an Independent candidate.

Among all registered voters, Abbott is the choice of 43% and O’Rourke of 42%, with 12% unsure of whom they would vote for and 3% choosing minor party candidates. The results remain nearly identical if the population is restricted to 2020 presidential election voters, with Abbott preferred by 44% and O’Rourke by 43%, with 10% unsure and 3% supporting minor party candidates.

O’Rourke, a former Congressman from El Paso who previously ran for president and for a seat in the U.S. Senate, has not formally announced his candidacy for governor but is widely expected to run.

The poll found that 49% of Hispanic respondents favor O’Rourke and 31% favor Abbott. Hispanics who are evangelical Protestants are more likely to vote for Abbott (42%) than O’Rourke (37%), while Catholic Hispanics and non-religious Hispanics overwhelmingly favor O’Rourke (56% and 46%) over Abbott (29% and 28%).

Before taking on the Democratic nominee, Abbott must make it through a competitive Republican primary. The new polling shows the two-term governor with an overwhelming lead in the GOP race: Abbott is ahead of his next-closest rival, former state Republican Party Chairman Allen West, by 51 percentage points, with 64% of the most likely GOP primary voters intending to vote for Abbott compared to 13% for West.

“Governor Abbott has shored up his right flank and stands firmly on solid ground with Republican primary voters,” said Jason Villalba, Chairman and CEO of the TxHPF. “But based on our data, it appears that he has achieved this objective by cutting deeply into his support with Texans who vote in the general election. Much can happen over the course of the year, but these numbers show that not only can we expect a competitive general election, but that Abbott’s shift to the hard right may have imperiled his governorship.”

The survey also found:

• Attorney General Ken Paxton has an overwhelming lead in his race for re-election, garnering support from 54% of likely Republican primary voters. The closest candidate to Paxton, Land Commissioner George P. Bush, has support from 18%, with other candidates in single digits.
• Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has a strong lead in the Republican primary over State Rep. James White.
• No candidate commands a strong lead in the Democratic primary races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, with more than half of likely primary voters saying they don’t know whom they support.

“Abbott and Paxton are showing a great deal of strength heading into the Republican primary,” said TxHPF Director of Research and Analytics Mark P. Jones of Rice University. “So far, no Republican challenger to an incumbent statewide official appears to be gaining any traction.”

Jones added, “Matthew McConaughey is a very popular actor, but his popularity is not turning into support at the ballot box in this survey.”

The TxHPF has previously established its credibility in measuring public opinion in Texas. In August 2020, the TxHPF was the first major research organization to forecast that then-President Donald Trump was running relatively well among Texas Hispanics. Those survey results proved to be strikingly accurate on Election Night 2020, when Trump performed stronger than previous Republican candidates in heavily Hispanic regions of the state.

For the survey 1,402 respondents were interviewed online between October 14 and 27, with a margin of error of +/- 2.6%.

About the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation
The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation operates as a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated and committed to analyzing and exploring the political, economic, social, demographic, and familial attitudes and behaviors of Texas Hispanics. The Foundation conducts surveys, polls, research, data collection and analysis concerning the Hispanic population in Texas. You can find more information about the Foundation at www.TxHPF.org.

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(Dallas, Texas, November 4, 2020) – Hispanic Texans played a pivotal role in helping President Donald Trump carry the state in Tuesday’s election, just as a Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation poll in August suggested they would.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, significantly underperformed previous Democratic candidates in a number of Texas counties with large Hispanic populations, ultimately dashing Democratic hopes of perhaps carrying Texas in a presidential race for the first time since 1976.

“One of the reasons Trump won Texas is because he cut into traditional Hispanic support for Democrats,” said Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation President Jason Villalba. “If Biden had met or slightly exceeded traditional Democratic performance among Hispanic Texans, he might have carried the state. Hispanic Texans proved their importance as a voting bloc.”

In August, THPF and the Rice University Baker Institute released a poll showing Biden leading Trump among Hispanic Texans by 9.5 percentage points. By comparison, 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won Hispanic Texans by 27 percentage points against Trump, according to exit polls.

An October 1 projection of the 2020 Texas Hispanic vote by the THPF based on the data from the August survey and aggregate voter data projected that Trump would win Texas 52% to 47% and that Biden would win 58% of the Hispanic vote to 41% for Trump. As of November 4, Trump is ahead in Texas 52% to 46% (with 92% of the vote counted) and the national exit poll data currently indicate that in Texas Biden won 59% of the Hispanic vote and Trump won 40% of the Hispanic vote.

Mark P. Jones, the TXHPF Director of Research and Analytics noted, “Donald Trump’s victory in Texas is due in large part to his substantial support among the state’s diverse Hispanic electorate. In the pivotal Rio Grande Valley counties of Hidalgo and Cameron, where 82% and 79% of registered voters are Hispanic, Trump won 41% and 43% of the vote amidst turnout that was notably higher than four years ago when Trump won only 28% and 32% of the vote in Hidalgo and Cameron respectively.”

“Democrats still have an advantage with Hispanic Texans, but they did not get the support from those voters that Biden needed to carry the state,” Villalba said. “Both parties would be wise to prioritize their outreach to Hispanic voters. Democrats should be asking why their support in heavily Hispanic areas fell so dramatically, and Republicans will need to make further progress with Hispanics if they want to continue their dominance in the state. Hispanic voters are only going to become more influential in Texas. The party that is best at reaching Hispanic voters will have a major advantage in future elections.”

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About the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation
The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation operates as a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated and committed to analyzing and exploring the political, economic, social, demographic, and familial attitudes and behaviors of Texas Hispanics. In collaboration with Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Foundation conducts surveys, polls, research, data collection and analysis concerning the Hispanic population in Texas. You can find more information about the Foundation at www.TxHPF.org.

Biden could win the state with two-thirds of Hispanic vote

(Dallas, Texas, October 1, 2020)– Hispanic voters are poised to determine which presidential candidate carries Texas in the November 3 election, according to a Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation analysis of polling, historical results and turnout projections.

The THPF analysis projects that former Vice President Joe Biden could narrowly win Texas by capturing two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in the state. This would be a slight improvement on the performance of 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who lost the state overall but won 61% of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls.

But based on polling conducted in August, THPF projects that President Donald Trump will narrow the gap among Hispanic voters enough to win Texas.

“Hispanic voters will decide who wins Texas,” said THPF President Jason Villalba, a former state representative from Dallas. “While we expect the majority of Hispanics will support Biden, the size of that majority will determine who will receive Texas’ 38 electoral votes. A surge in Hispanic support for Biden could turn the state blue. Both campaigns should be taking Hispanic Texans very seriously right now.”

The THPF August poll showed Biden leading Trump by 9.5 percentage points among Hispanic voters. Other polls have also given Biden a similar lead. For example, a Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Biden leading Trump by 8 points among Texas Hispanics.

Based on the August polling, THPF Director of Research and Analytics Mark P. Jones of Rice University projects that Biden will win 58 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas and that Trump will carry the state with 52 percent of the overall vote.

However, if Biden surpasses Clinton’s 2016 performance and wins two-thirds of the Hispanic vote, he will narrowly carry Texas, Jones projects.

“Biden can win Texas, but only if he is able to boost his support among Hispanics during the homestretch of the campaign,” Jones said. “So far, Biden has not performed as well among Texas Hispanics as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and that works to Trump’s advantage.”

THPF, using exit polls and voter file reports, projects that Hispanics will make up 27% of the electorate in Texas this year — up from 24% in 2016 and 22% in 2012.

“The Texas electorate is increasingly Hispanic,” Villalba said. “We will continue to see Hispanic voters having more and more influence in the presidential race and in Texas elections up and down the ballot. Given our state’s large number of electoral votes, Hispanic Texans are one of the most important voter blocs in the country right now.”

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About the Texas Hispanic Policy FoundationThe Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation operates as a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated and committed to analyzing and exploring the political, economic, social, demographic, and familial attitudes and behaviors of Texas Hispanics. In collaboration with Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Foundation conducts surveys, polls, research, data collection and analysis concerning the Hispanic population in Texas. You can find more information about the Foundation at www.TxHPF.org.

HISPANIC SHARE OF VOTERS CASTING A BALLOT INTEXAS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (based on exit poll and voter file reports)

2016 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE FROM EXIT POLL

PROJECTED 2020 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE BASED ON AUGUST THPF SURVEY

ESTIMATED 2020 PRESIDENTIAL VOTEWITH BIDEN WINNING 2/3 OF HISPANIC VOTE (all else constant)

(Dallas, Texas, August 17, 2020) – Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by a relatively modest margin among Hispanic voters in Texas, suggesting that Hispanics will have a pivotal role in deciding who wins the state this fall, according to new polling from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation (THPF) and Rice University’s Baker Institute. But Trump maintains a lead among all Texas voters.

The poll, which was also sponsored by the Dallas Morning News, shows Trump leads Biden by 7 percentage points among registered voters and by 5.4 percentage points among the state’s most likely voters. However, among registered Hispanic voters, Biden leads by 9.5 percentage points.

The survey, which was conducted between August 4 and August 13 among a representative sample of 846 Texas registered voters with a Hispanic oversample, suggests the Hispanic vote in Texas is increasingly up for grabs.

This polling is the first major research initiative of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group established to analyze the opinions and behaviors of Hispanic Texans.

“This poll reinforces the fact that Hispanic voters are not monolithic and have a unique perspective on this race vis a vis Hispanics in other states,” said THPF President Jason Villalba. “There is a clear gender gap among Hispanic voters, as well as differences based on age, religion and educational attainment. Despite Biden’s nearly 10% lead, neither presidential candidate has yet to completely lock down the Texas Hispanic vote. For a presidential candidate to compete in Texas, clearly, Hispanics are the key constituency.”

“The results of this data show you can’t take the Hispanic vote for granted,” said former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, a member of the THPF Board of Directors. “If you want our support, you better work for it.”

The race for the U.S. Senate in Texas is breaking along similar lines as the presidential contest. Republican Sen. John Cornyn leads Democratic challenger MJ Hegar by 7 percentage points among all registered voters and 6.1 percentage points among the most likely voters. But Hegar leads by 8.6 percentage points among Hispanic voters, 19.4% of whom remain undecided.

According to THPF Director of Research and Analytics Mark P. Jones, “Texas Hispanics will play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Texas. While these survey results indicate Republicans Donald Trump and John Cornyn are in the lead over Democrats Joe Biden and MJ Hegar, both Biden and Hegar remain within striking distance of victory.”

In the presidential race, the poll found a much wider lead for Biden among Hispanic women than Hispanic men, similar to the Democrat’s stronger performance among all women in Texas and nationally.

Specifically, the poll found that:

• Hispanics with four Hispanic grandparents prefer Biden over Trump by a large margin, while those with one to three Hispanic grandparents only narrowly prefer Biden over Trump.
• Hispanics who speak Spanish or equal amounts of Spanish and English at home prefer Biden, while Hispanics who speak English at home narrowly prefer Trump.
• Hispanics who describe themselves as Catholic or lacking a religious identification prefer Biden by a wide margin, while Protestant Hispanics heavily favor Trump.
• Hispanic Texans with at least a bachelor’s degree prefer Trump, while those who have not completed a four-year degree choose Biden.
• Hispanics approve of the term Hispanic to refer to their community to a greater degree than Latino and to a dramatically greater degree than Latinx.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

About the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation
The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation operates as a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated and committed to analyzing and exploring the political, economic, social, demographic, and familial attitudes and behaviors of Texas Hispanics. In collaboration with Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Foundation conducts surveys, polls, research, data collection and analysis concerning the Hispanic population in Texas. You can find more information about the Foundation at www.TxHPF.org.

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The Dallas Morning News

By Jason Villalba

The rise in Hispanic voting will affect political races across the state.

The Native American Quinnipiac tribe of North America has a legend to explain a peculiar rock embankment resting peacefully on the hills just north of New Haven, Conn. There you will find a traprock mountain range now known as the Sleeping Giant, because of its likeness to a human form resting on the horizon.

The legend is based on the story of an angry spirit named Hobbomock who became displeased because the local tribes were abandoning the ancient customs of their ancestors. In his ire, he threatened to destroy the tribes. A countervailing spirit, seeing the potential for harm, cast a spell on Hobbomock and set him to sleep forever in the form of a rock formation. To this day, the Quinnipiac restlessly await the moment when the giant will rustle from his sleep and his voice will be heard.

Just as the stolid mountains of Connecticut have remained silent for generations, so too has the electoral voice of Texas Latinos.

Even though Hispanics in Texas represent nearly 40% of the eligible voting population, until the 2018 midterm elections, Texas Latinos had never comprised more than 20% of actual voting electorate. As a result, Latinos were often characterized as the sleeping giant — a potentially powerful voting bloc that never seemed to reach its demographic potential.

But something peculiar happened in November 2018. The giant began to rustle from his slumber. The ripple in Texas politics was immediately noticeable. In Dallas County, Texas Latinos comprised approximately 9% of the total voter participation in the 2010 and 2014 election cycles. In November of 2018, this percentage grew to 16%. That growth is simply unprecedented.

As a result, Beto O’Rourke, an unknown congressman from El Paso, came within 2 percentage points of defeating one of the most well-known and highly regarded tea party senators in the United States: Ted Cruz.

At the state level, because of a nearly 15% increase in Hispanic voter participation statewide, Texas Democrats flipped nine Texas House seats around the state, putting the Texas House in play for the first time in a generation. With just nine additional seats, Democrats would control the Texas House and be in the driver’s seat for census, redistricting and map drawing, which will shape Texas politics for the next decade.

As Texas Latinos become increasingly aware of their voting power and as they are better organized by political parties and candidates, they will have a greater impact on every political race in Texas: from school board trustees, to county commissioners, to state house representatives, to United States senator.

What we witnessed on Super Tuesday 2020 makes clear that the days when Texas voters can ignore Hobbomock are gone. Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who was able to coalesce the mindshare of nearly 40% of Texas Latinos on Super Tuesday, was within 5 percentage points of winning Texas. Without Latino voters, Sanders would have been crushed by Joe Biden. But because Biden was able to cobble together a coalition of African American, Anglo and boomer-generation college-educated voters, he prevailed.

Sanders’ message appealed to Texas Hispanics, hence, he was able to actually compete in Texas. Think about that. Sanders was nearly able to prevail in Texas. That was the direct result of Hispanic participation in the electoral process.

As the Quinnipiac people have learned, it is easy to ignore the dangers posed by a mythological bogeyman. It is much more difficult, however, to dismiss data, facts, statistics, trends and analysis.

Texas Latinos are here. We are wide awake, knowledgeable, informed, and ready to have our voice heard. Ignore Hobbomock at your peril.

Jason Villalba is chairman of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.