Trump and Cornyn are running exactly the same here, both with ceilings of 45-46%.
A serious Democratic investment in Texas could pay massive dividends - boxing Republicans out of the electoral college, potentially flipping the Senate, making gains in the House, and flipping the State House which would go a long way against gerrymandering in 2021.
I'm confident the party will blow it.
Lol. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Trump has a 46% ceiling in Texas, if we were to take this poll at his face value (I never do this for any poll), there are around 11% of undecided voters and it’s very unlikely that all of them will vote against Trump ; when looking at 2016/2018 results and the few recents polls we have, Trump has a ceiling of around 53 to 54% and à floor of something like 49 to 50% in TX
Undecided voters are impossible to properly predict or allocate in any properly conducted poll of a competitive race because the subsample sizes are simply too small to be meaningful. Any pollster who tells you they can do it, no matter how technically they talk or whatever statistical method they use, is talking out of their ass.
Correct that Trump will likely get more than 46% of the vote in Texas, unless a complete and total collapse of Republican support occurs 1964-style. Ceiling in polling is the term we use to describe the strongest performance that a candidate registers in that poll, with floor being the weakest. I assume it carries a different meaning for data modelers (which I am not) and for many pundits and folks on this forum.
There are few good polls of Texas from this time in 2017, but in early 2018 Cruz had a ceiling of around 47-48%. If this poll is confirmed by others, it suggests movement towards Dems in TX has continued at a slow pace. This foreshadows, as you correctly point out, a close statewide race worthy of Dem investment.
You're probably a bit too bullish on the democrat's chances in Texas.
The few recents polls we have (UT/Texas-Tribune, UT-Tyler) are giving Trump around 46% of the vote in Texas while his democratic opponents are around 40% ; that's a healthy 6 points lead, which is not that bad when you know that national polls have as of now Trump down by a high single digit margin against democrats.
No, I'm not. A six-point lead is not healthy in a poll with a margin of error of 3-4 points. If the election were held today I would guess Trump wins by somewhere between the Paxton/Nelson margin and the Miller/Olson margin, which is more or less what the UT polls show.
Regardless of whether the national party or Presidential nominee dumps money on the state, as it stands there are likely to be a series of well-funded registration/persuasion/GOTV operations in the districts being defended and targeted by Dems in both the U.S. and State House, and potentially statewide at the Senate level depending on the strength of the candidate. I suspect the national party will decline to make a large investment in the state, rationalizing that it is too high risk outweighs the high reward and instead make safer investments in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Regardless, Dems have a modern-day infrastructure and coalition in the state for the first time in decades and Republicans are the slightest bit too complacent about it, in a similar way that North Carolina in 2008 felt.
