New Poll Results Show Texas Likely to be Swing State in 2020

New poll results indicate that Texas won't be a sure thing for conservative politicians in next year's election.

As reported by the Houston Chronicle, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll shows Texas support for the incumbent president to be evenly split, with 39% saying they would definitely vote for Trump in 2020, and 43% saying they definitely wouldn't. Of the remaining, 11% said they probably would vote for him, and 7% said they probably wouldn't. Another UT/TT poll shows voters equally split over outlawing abortion after six weeks.

The loosening of the GOP's grip on Texas has been felt before, especially with Ted Cruz beating Beto O'Rourke by barely 3%. However, Texas GOP chairman James Dickey is confident in his party's chances next year,

For 2020, we are building back the volunteer army that brought the Republican Party to power decades ago. Next year will look very different from the field efforts of 2018. Republicans are rallying and ready to win up and down the ballot in 2020 and will prove it with their shoe leather.

Joshua Blank, manager of pulling and research for the Texas Politics Project commented that these results show the state is becoming far more competitive electorally, and that the Republican dominance of Texas politically doesn't fully represent the views of the citizen body,

Just because Republicans dominate statewide elections and tend to get majorities in the state House and state Senate and obviously, in the Congressional delegation, it doesn’t mean that public opinion on major issues is equally lopsided.

While Texas is certainly a conservative state, I think what we saw in the 2018 elections and what we continue to see in the 2020 elections, is a much more competitive state electorally. But for that to be the case, you also have to have a relatively competitive distribution of opinion across a pretty wide range of important issues. And I think that’s what we’re starting to see here.