Surprise: Texas voters aren't particularly excited about electing a tax-and-spend liberal whose claim to fame is filibustering a widely-supported bill to ban sixth-month abortions. With a grain of salt due to its provenance, feast your eyes on the latest polling out of the Lonestar State (which Katie covered earlier here):
Republican Greg Abbott -- currently the state's Attorney General -- leads by 14 points, with Davis struggling in the mid-to-high 30's. Recall that Davis got swamped in heavily Hispanic areas along the southern border in the Democratic primary. She leads Hispanics by just ten points in this poll. Abbott leads among men by 21 points (perhaps some Texas men sympathize with Wendy's ex), and eight among women. Davis has also experienced a stark reversal on personal favorability:
Abbott is sitting at (+13), with Davis limping along at (-14). Women view her roughly just as unfavorably as men. Maybe she'll turn things around after her secretive meeting with President Obama, with whom she declined to appear in public. As a tip of the hat to Texas tweeter Will Franklin, be sure to read his recent analysis of Texas' exceptional public education stats, which continue to compare very favorably with similarly-situated California on both costs and student outcomes. As for Democrat-aligned PPP's polling in Texas, their track record is...interesting. Dan McLaughlin delivers this fun juxtaposition:
PPP: 1st time we've seen Rick Perry w/a positive approval rating in TX! http://t.co/2n0p6oIjCh Rick Perry is 6-0 in statewide TX elections.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 15, 2014
The only worrying element of this survey is that the under-45 crowd skews toward Davis. Meanwhile, is Al Franken in trouble in Minnesota? A new poll shows President Obama deep underwater in the state, with Obamacare doing significant damage to the Democratic brand. Incumbents Mark Dayton (Governor) and Franken (Senate) fare better than Obama does, but neither one looks invincible. Franken, a former SNL writer and performer, has gone out of his way to cultivate a sober and serious image since he first sought elective office in 2008. He's generally eschews national interviews, and appeared to deliberately excise silliness from his daily diet ever since an infamous run-in with Mitch McConnell. But deep down, it looks as if he's still Stuart Smalley:
"Goshdarnit, fewer voters like me."
Notebook