2010: New Poll, Same Story

Rick Perry leads Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina in the race for governor, but still hasn't won 50 percent of the voters, according to a new poll done for the Texas Credit Union League. By their reckoning, Perry has 49 percent; Hutchison has 27 percent and Debra Medina has 19 percent.

On the Democratic side, Bill White got 51 percent to Farouk Shami's 19 percent.

TCUL hired a Republican firm (Public Opinion Strategies) and a Democratic firm (Hamilton Campaigns) to survey primary voters from each party. They put the complete results, with crosstabs, on their website.

Some of their findings:

•    In a hypothetical run-off between Perry and Hutchison, the Governor prevails handily 58% to 34%.
•    62% of Republican primary voters say they are "much more" (36%) or "somewhat more" (26%) likely to support a candidate who considers themselves to be a "tea-party" activist.
•    The poll indicates that incumbents of either party should not take this election for granted if they have an opponent, the lead for incumbents is remarkably low.
•    For state legislators, Democratic primary voters prefer the incumbent to a challenger by a 39% to 29% margin (a 10 point spread), with 32% undecided.  
•    Republican state legislative incumbents, voters prefer the incumbent to a challenger, 44% GOP incumbent to 37% GOP challenger ( a 7 point spread), with 20% undecided.

Their explanation of the poll: Two separate surveys were conducted by nationally known Republican and Democrat research firms between February 3, 4 and 6th, 2010 and reached 400 likely Republican primary voters and 400 likely Democratic primary voters. Each survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.