Texans' overall mood about the state improved marginally in the October 2021 UT/TT Poll, but remains pretty grim overall - just ask Joe Biden.
Hi All,
The Texas Tribune released the final batch of results from the October 2021 UT/Texas Tribune Poll this morning, in stories by James Pollard on Texans’ views of the economy and general direction of Texas and the U.S., and by Bethany Irvine on attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic. The UT team (Daron Shaw, Joshua Blank and me) also recorded our customary special edition of the Texas Tribune's Tribcast focused on the poll. Thanks to the Tribune's Ross Ramsey and Todd Wiseman for making that happen (and making it fun). Give it a listen.
Two regularly updated posts at the Texas Politics Project website provide one-stop compilations of trend data on both of COVID and Texans' general assessments of the direction of the US and Texas, of the economy, as well as trends in job approvals for incumbents.
The COVID-19 data provides a terrific (if slightly harrowing) view of the path of attitudes toward the pandemic and government response, as well as of shifts in reported behaviors. The latest results from the October Poll continue to show very clear partisan differences in attitudes and behaviors, as well as differences between the main racial and ethnic groups in the state, on matters related to the pandemic. The overall trends also show the effect of the Delta variant on attitudes and behaviors in August, while signs of the variant subsiding and vaccination increasing show up in the October data. I’ve included an example below, but I urge you to look through the updated compendium of trend graphics at our website. (You can also look at results on the subject using our search engine and the “coronavirus” tag.)
Our compilation of trend graphics of data related to Texans’ views of the state and national environments, as well as of elected officials, is useful for seeing what improved and what got worse between the August and October polls. The finding in the August 2021 Texas Politics Project Poll that a majority of Texans, 52%, said the state was on the wrong track made some waves; that number improved slightly, as did the share who said the state was headed in the right direction, which increased from 35% to 40%. But both micro- and macro-economic assessments worsened in the same period. The share who said they were better off economically than a year ago remained unchanged from August (20%), while the share that said they were worse off increased from 31% to 36%.
The share of Texans who think the country is on the wrong track leapt from 64% to 70% in the same window – only one in five Texans offered that the country is headed in the right direction. The share who rated the national economy better off compared to a year ago declined from 30% to 24%, while the share saying that the economy is worse rose from 47% to 55%.
With the Texas Tribune rollout complete, we’ve posted all of our usual work products for the poll. You’ll find graphics for multiple crosstabs on our latest poll page, and standard files (summary, crosstabs, data files, codebook) in the October 2021 entry in our polling data archive.
Hope the rest of your week goes well. And on the off-chance she’s made it this far into the email, more happy birthday wishes to the excellent Kathy Grant. Sorry we both had to work on your birthday.
Best,
JH
Jim Henson
Executive Director, The Texas Politics Project
College of Liberal Arts / Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin
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