In the short run, the GOP appears to be embarking on a winning strategy to mobilize a reliable and larger electorate using the rhetoric that motivates its voters.
Jim Henson
Jim Henson directs the Texas Politics Project and teaches in the Department of Government at The University of Texas, where he also received a doctorate. He helped design public interest multimedia for the Benton Foundation in Washington, D.C., in the late 1990s and has written about politics in general-interest and academic publications. He also serves as associate director of the College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services unit at UT, where he has helped produce several award-winning instructional media projects. In 2008, he and Daron Shaw, a fellow UT government professor, established the first statewide, publicly available internet survey of public opinion in Texas using matched random sampling. He lives in Austin, where he also serves as a member of the City of Austin Ethics Review Commission.
Posted in
Politics
The Polling Center: Can Lt. Gov. Candidates Go Too Far on Abortion?
The Republican lieutenant governor candidates’ views on abortion after rape, displayed prominently in Monday night’s debate, may have edged farther right than the Texas GOP’s comfort zone.
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Politics
Polling Center: Privacy, Partisanship and the Paranoid Style
Everybody is nervous about privacy, and most voters don’t have a high level of confidence in many public and private institutions. But their level of trust has a lot to do with their political alignment, too.
Posted in
Demographics
Polling Center: Major Issues, Poison Pills
Democratic and Republican voters favor many provisions of proposed immigration law reforms and of the Affordable Care Act. But the rhetorical emphasis on unpopular provisions of those policies has made them nonstarters with those same voters.
Posted in
Politics
Polling Center: GOP Candidates, Voters and Creationism
If you want to know why Republican candidates for lieutenant governor favor teaching creationism in schools, just look at conservative voters’ views on the subject.
Posted in
Demographics
Polling Center: GOP Candidates Bet on Border Security
Republican candidates in Texas have figured out how to talk about immigration without stepping on political land mines: They talk about border security instead.
Posted in
Politics
Polling Center: Obama Weighs Heavily on Texas Democrats
There is a reason so many Texas Republicans are mentioning the Democratic president in their commercials: He’s unpopular with Republicans, and moderates and some Democrats have their reservations, too.
Posted in
Politics
The Polling Center: Women Through the Looking Glass
As a group, women have neither followed the March Hare to the Tea Party nor signed up for Wendy Davis’ trip to Wonderland, leaving the campaigns to ponder their place on the electoral chessboard.
Posted inState Government
The Playlist: Set Out Running
As state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, prepares to announce a likely run for lieutenant governor, we’re going to go out on a very thick limb and start this week’s news-based playlist with Neko Case’s “Set Out Running.”
Posted inState Government
Polling Center: Cornyn and the Cruz Effect
The state’s senior U.S. senator, up for re-election in 2014, steers warily around the state’s junior U.S. senator, who has been on a roll for the last several months.
