Conservatives are throwing everything but the Paxton kitchen sink into efforts that are aimed at derailing State Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock in a quest for the Texas House speaker's job that he expects to win when the Legislature convenes in regular session on Tuesday.
But a new poll by the firm Ascend Action may take the cake as a Hail Mary in the most brutal House leadership fight of all time with findings that give the impression that Burrows could be doomed in a bid for a new term based on a bipartisan stance in the speaker's race. Burrows is dueling State Rep. David Cook as the GOP caucus nominee who's appeared to stall with less than 60 Republicans as pledged supporters and not a single Democrat up to now in his camp.
The Ascend Action team consists of several operatives who have worked in various capacities for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz including a campaign for president in 2016 when Donald Trump claimed the first of three eventual nominations for the nation's top prize.
The consulting company has Cruz at the top of a client list with former and current clients that include the Texas GOP, State Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo and incoming House Republicans Andy Hopper of Decatur, AJ Louderback of Victoria, David Lowe of Fort Worth, Shelley Luther of Sherman and Katrina Pierson of Rockwall. Ascend Action has worked for the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt as well.
The poll that the group conducted in House District 83, which Burrows has represented for almost 10 years, found that 49 percent of the likely Republican voters there would support "a conservative alternative" if the primary election for 2026 was staged today. Only 26 percent of 406 HD 83 voters in the Ascend Action survey said they'd vote for Burrows again while 25 percent were undecided.
But Burrows doesn't fare as well when the same question is posed again after a question that's designed to educate voters who aren't tracking the speaker's battle and squeezed in between the two on the West Texas voters' primary preferences for 2026.
"When Dustin Burrows failed to win the Republican nomination for Speaker of the Texas House, he immediately reached out to House Democrats, and continues to actively court them, to secure enough votes to win without the support of his Republican colleagues," the poll reveals. "Does this make you more likely or less likely to vote for Dustin Burrows?"
Armed with the selective insight on the dynamics of the race, the HD 83 voters in the sample were even less enamored with their state representative. The poll showed Burrows' support at home fall 3 percentage points while an unspecified challenger's share there vaulted 8 percent. That computes to an 11 point swing in favor of the hypothetical primary foe who runs to Burrows' right next year.
But 65 percent of the HD 83 voters indicated they'd be less likely to support Burrows in a re-election race compared to 22 percent who'd be more likely to back him at the polls once they've been provided with the assertions in the polling question.
Burrows' camp could try to turn the tide on the narrative with polling that gauged his support on a possible primary match up with the same push-poll strategy employed in HD 83. A poll could pack significant information in such a question ...
"If Dustin Burrows is elected as the speaker, he would have the ability to deliver substantially more funding, projects, pork and other perks for the part of West Texas that he represents than any state legislator has done since Democrat Pete Laney led the House before the Republicans took over in 2003. Texas Tech University and agriculture could both be prime beneficiaries from a Burrows speakership.
"Does this make you more likely or less likely to vote for Dustin Burrows?" the Burrows counter-punch pollsters could ask.
The Ascend Action poll that was taken January 5-7 in HD 83 found that 31 percent of the voters had favorable impressions of Burrows compared to 37 percent who viewed him unfavorably. Nineteen percent had no opinion on the local lawmaker who could be on the doorstep of a massive promotion to the state's highest power ranks. But 12 percent of the voters in Burrows' district said they'd never heard of him.
Attorney General Ken Paxton was held in a favorable light by 60 percent of the HD 83 voters while 27 percent viewed him negatively. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick received a favorable rating from 50 percent compared to unfavorables of 22 percent.
Both Paxton and Patrick are calling on the House to elect a speaker that a majority of the Republicans support. Neither have appeared to be making any headway with time as a rapidly growing liability.
