Texas politics: New UH/TSU survey reveals close statewide races

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A new survey released Wednesday morning from the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston and the Executive Master of Public Administration Program in the Barbara Jordan - Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University reveals close races at the top of the Texas 2022 ballot, with Republican incumbents leading in the top three contests among likely voters.

The video featured in the media player above is from a previously recorded episode of This Week in Texas, an in-depth political conversation hosted by Tom Abrahams.

Governor Greg Abbott leads Beto O'Rourke 49% to 42% with seven percent undecided.

In the race for Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick leads democrat Mike Collier 49% to 43% with 8% undecided.

And in the Attorney General's race, embattled Republican Ken Paxton leads civil rights attorney Rochelle Garza by three points, 45% to 42% with ten percent of those surveyed undecided.

The survey was conducted between August 11 and 29, 2022 in English and Spanish, with 2,140 respondents 18 years of age and older, resulting in a confidence interval of +/-2.1. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race/ethnicity, and education and are representative of the Texas adult population.

READ MORE: See full survey results

It found that "while O'Rourke and Abbott are tied among likely women voters in the gubernatorial race and Collier leads Patrick by 1% among likely women voters in the lieutenant governor contest, Garza leads Paxton by 5% among likely women voters in the attorney general contest," and that "Virtually every Texas Democrat (93%) intends to vote for O'Rourke, compared to 2% who intend to vote for Abbott, and virtually every Texas Republican (93%) intends to vote for Abbott, compared to 2% who intend to vote for O'Rourke. Texas Independents are more evenly divided, albeit favoring Abbott, with 47% intending to vote for Abbott and 25% for O'Rourke."

Nearly one in four independents have not made up their minds, according to the survey.

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