Looking at the Perry/Hutchison Republican Primary
By Richard Murray
I wrote a couple of weeks ago on the likely Republican Primary showdown between Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in March 2010. Governor Perry, already the longest serving chief executive in Texas history, seems headed for his toughest race, not against a Democrat, but a fellow Republican, as he tries for a fourth term in office. The anticipated race is already drawing lots of press, and a couple of polls have been released in the last month. The first, by a group based in North Carolina, showed Senator Hutchison with about 20 point advantage over Governor Perry among likely primary voters. The second, a University of Texas survey, showed a much closer race, with the Senator still leading, but by half that margin. What should one make of these early polls in the governor race?
Based on more than 30 years for polling in Texas and the nation, here is my take.
Above all else, keep in mind polls taken a year before an election are notoriously unreliable. If you could take these early readings to the bank we would had a presidential match-up last November between Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Hillary Clinton, as both were well ahead of their rivals a year before their respective party nominating conventions.
Early polls miss for all kinds of reasons. Many voters have not yet begun to focus on the election, so their “top-of-the-head” answers to telephone surveyors often tell us little more than which of the candidates named are best known to voters. However, by election day people usually know a lot more about all the serious contenders. Besides getting to know more about the candidates, the issues that concern voters can change a lot over a few weeks, much less a year or so. In 2007 most analysts (and most candidates) thought the war in Iraq would be the driving issue in the presidential race, but by the time voters went to the polls in November 2008 that issue had been pushed aside by the economic meltdown.
Back to the 2010 Republican primary, at least we have two opposing candidates that are equally known to voters in Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry. That means these early polls merit serious consideration. As such, it is meaningful that Senator Hutchison has consistently higher job approval ratings than the Governor, and is better liked among persons who identify themselves as Republicans. She thus enters this long election season with an edge, but it does not mean she will defeat the Governor next March.
One reason is, as noted, no one knows the issues motivating voters a year from now. And while we already know both candidates will be well funded, we have no idea what the quality of their respective campaigns will be. Remember, these veteran politicians have never faced off against another Republican in a high profile race. We expect the primary to be hard-fought, perhaps even bitter, increasing the odds for unforeseeable twists and turns.
But the major reason we have to be quite careful in projecting current poll numbers into March 2010 results is the huge uncertainty as to who will actually show up at the Republican polls next year. One can see why that is a big problem by looking at Republican primary voting in the last four gubernatorial years (1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006) compared to the vote received by the Republican nominee in the November General Election.
These numbers show that while there have been millions of votes for Republican nominees in recent General Elections, there were far, far fewer voters in the March party primaries. That tells me that trying to figure out who the primary voters will be a year from now, and poll just those voters, is not possible at this stage. Any one of the 13 million registered voters in Texas can vote in the Republican Primary next year, but if past performance is a guide, less than a million will actually cast ballots.
We do know that the very selective GOP primary voters from 1994 – 2006 have been disproportionately hard-right conservatives. This explains why Governor Perry has been busily moving to the far right since he realized Senator Hutchison really is going to try and take him out in 2010, unlike four years ago when she talked about running against him, but pulled back at the last minute.
I refuse to vote for any one who doesn't support Stopping Illegal Immigrations. Period
Posted by: maggieb | March 23, 2009 at 01:51 AM