O'Rourke Posts Best Showing Since March
with Abbott Up By 2 in GOP Company Poll

Capitol Inside
September 15, 2022

A new poll by a national Republican firm shows Governor Greg Abbott leading Democrat Beto O'Rourke by only 2 points - the closest that the challenger has come in the past six months.

The Alexandria-based consulting shop Echelon Insights found Abbott with support from 48 percent of 813 Texas voters who it tested in a poll online for a coalition of trade associations called NetChoice. O'Rourke was favored by 46 percent - the highest share of support that he's scored in 17 independent surveys that have been conducted on the marquee Texas race up to now in 2022.

Abbott was up by 3 points in the number of Texans who said they would "definitely" back the Republican over O'Rourke at the ballot box in the general election less than eight weeks from now on November 8. The governor also had a 3 point advantage over O'Rourke when Matthew McConaughey was included on the menu as an independent candidate.

The emergence of the Oscar-award winning actor who's an Austin resident as a belated candidate on the ballot doesn't appear to be a possibility based on Texas election deadlines. But McConaughey received 13 percent from Texas nonetheless in the Echelon Insights survey over eight days from August 31 to September 6. Abbott and O'Rourke polled 42 percent and 39 percent respectively with the famed actor as an option.

The Echelon Insights poll's margin of error is considerable at plus minus 4.4 for Texas because the sample is relatively small. The survey failed to include the Texas governor in questions on the election in 2024 when 46 percent said they would support Democratic President Joe Biden compared to 45 percent for Donald Trump.

The former president led Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 57 percent to 35 percent in a potential GOP primary matchup. The GOP firm's poll found Biden ahead of DeSantis by 5 points at 46 percent.

The central finding in the poll for NetChoice was that Americans want the White House and Congress to make fighting inflation a higher priority over trying to dismantle the technology industry.

Abbott received a favorable rating from 49 percent of the Texas voters in the Summer 2022 Antitrust Survey while 46 percent viewed him unfavorably. Forty-six percent of the Texans in the poll approved of Biden compared to 52 percent who rated him unfavorably. Fifty-three percent gave Trump an unfavorable mark while 45 percent had favorable views of the former president.

more to come ...