New UT/Texas Politics Project Poll: Most Texans take a dim view of state government ahead of the 2023 legislative session
Hi All,
This morning, we released the results of a new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll, the first survey we’ve ever conducted in the interim between a general election and the kickoff of a Texas legislative session. The poll was designed to explore some of the attitudes likely to influence public responses prior to the emergence of a more defined agenda, and more concrete policy proposals, in the upcoming session. You can find an overview of some key results and links to the usual files (summary, tabs, data files) in a post at the Texas Politics Project website.
We surveyed attitudes on other subjects as well, including Texans’ views of other countries, of national and Texas identity, their media habits, and more. As always, the summary documents and the Texas Politics Project graphics archive provide comprehensive results. Data was collected December 2-11, 2022, among 1,200 self-declared registered voters in Texas, with data collection by YouGov. It has a margin of sampling error of +/- 2.89 percentage points for the full sample.
Before we break for the holidays, here are a few highlights.
Questions exploring Texans’ views of state government revealed a steep decline in Texans’ assessments of responsiveness and fiscal responsibility since 2017. In a set of questions asking Texans to choose from opposing statements characterizing Texas state government, the plurality, 46%, said that the state government in Austin “mostly ignores the needs of Texas residents,” while 37% said that it “mostly addresses” Texans’ needs. When we asked the same question in October 2017 UT polling, the responses were inverted: 49% said the state government mostly addresses the needs of Texans, while 38% said that it mostly ignores their needs. (In both items, the remainders were undecided.)
Democrats were, not surprisingly, more critical of state government than Republicans, whose elected officials have occupied all executive offices in the state and held majorities in both houses of the Legislature since 2003: 69% of Democrats said the state mostly ignores residents' needs, compared to 26% of Republicans. Among Republicans, however, the share saying the state is addressing the needs of Texans decreased sharply over the five-year period, from 77% in 2017 to 59% in the latest poll.
Amidst sustained criticism by Republican elected officials of corporate policies related to climate and other social issues, the plurality of Texan voters said corporations and businesses are doing too little in response to climate change. The survey asked Texans to assess whether corporations and businesses were doing too much, too little, or the right amount in response to six issue areas: climate change, racial discrimination, women’s rights, abortion access, democracy and voting rights, and LGTBQ issues.
The issue on which the largest share of Texans judged business as doing “too little” was climate change (44%), though the 29% saying they were doing “too much” was also the second highest share of “too much” responses. In a separate question about the existence of climate change, most Texans, 62%, continue to agree that climate change is happening, though large disagreements still emerge about current state and federal responsiveness to its effects. Pluralities of Texans say that the federal (38%) and state (41%) governments are doing too little to address climate change. Sharp partisan differences persist in all of these responses, with Democrats more likely to acknowledge the existence of climate change (92% versus 36% of Republicans) and to think state government is doing “too little” to address it (75% versus 12%).
The issue on which the highest share said businesses were doing “too much” was lesbian, gay, transgender, bi-sexual, and/or queer (LGTBQ) rights: 36% said corporations were doing “too much,” while 29% said “too little” – the lowest share saying “too little” among the issues tested. Overall, more Texans said corporations were doing “too little” than said they were doing too much” or “the right amount” on every issue in the battery except LGTBQ issues.
Among a group of prominent institutions and social groups in Texas life, only local businesses were viewed favorably by a broad majority of Texans, with other institutions earning mostly divided views, and none receiving positive assessments from more than half of the poll respondents. “Local businesses in your area” were viewed favorably by three-quarters (75%), while only 6% viewed them unfavorably. Corporations fared less well than did local businesses, especially foreign corporations: 41% viewed U.S.-based corporations favorably, while 27% expressed unfavorable views. Foreign corporations received the least favorable ratings among the entities by a wide margin: only 16% viewed them favorably, while 42% viewed them unfavorably, the highest negative assessment from among the entities tested. The other entities assessed included churches and faith organizations (50% approve/24% disapprove); universities and colleges (45%/34%); public schools (K-12) (44%/31%); and labor unions (40%/30%). General decay in Texans’ estimations were much in evidence in this battery of items: no group earned “very favorable” views among more than 25% of respondents.
The most favorably viewed institutions among Republicans were local businesses (78%) and churches and faith organizations (67%). Local business was also the top choice of Democrats (75%), with labor unions and higher education institutions tied for the second highest share at 66%.
However lukewarm Texans’ views of the performance of state government, assessments of specific officeholders generally improved after the intensely partisan election season resulted in GOP victories across the board. In the wake of his reelection, Gov. Greg Abbott’s job approval rating hit a high for 2022: 49% approved of the job he is doing as governor, while 41% disapproved. This is Abbott’s highest job approval rating since he last hit 49% in June 2020. Approval of Abbott’s job performance increased slightly among non-Republicans compared to October polling, including 5-point increases among both Democrats (from 9% to 14%) and independents (40% to 45%). Republican approval was stable, registering a statistically indistinguishable improvement from 86% to 87% in the same period.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s job approval ratings demonstrated a similar upswing as he leads the Texas Senate into the legislative session: 43% approved, while 36% disapproved of his job performance, the first time the Lt. Governor’s job approval ratings have registered net positive since February, 2021. About half of Texans expressed no view of Speaker of the House Dade Phelan’s job performance. Those voters with a view were evenly split: 24% approved and 24% disapproved. Even President Joe Biden’s job performance evaluation registered a small uptick in the aftermath of the 2022 elections, though Texans’ evaluations of Biden remain in net-negative territory: 42% approved and 50% disapproved. This was Biden’s most positive overall rating since June 2021.
Some context in broad policy areas as the session nears: The poll also looked at some attitudes likely to shape public responses as concrete proposals emerge during the legislative process next year.
Immigration and border security once again led the list of the most important problems facing Texas: 30% cited one or the other as most important, composed in large part by 60% of Texas Republicans. Among Democrats, the top response was “political corruption/leadership”, cited by 22%.
Texans’ views of marijuana legalization remain, on the whole, supportive of some degree of legalization: 72% of Texas voters supported reducing the punishment for possession of small amounts of marijuana to a citation and a fine, while only 17% said they would endorse a complete prohibition on marijuana usage, including for medicinal purposes. Since 2017, no more than 20% of Texans have expressed support for the total criminalization of marijuana possession.
Asked about the laws governing gambling in Texas, 35% said that Texas’ gambling laws should be made less strict, 20% said more strict, and 22% said they should be left alone.
Nearly two-thirds of Texas voters, 65%, expressed support for expanding Medicaid eligibility, largely unchanged from when the question was last asked in June 2021 UT polling. Republican voters were split in their views of Medicaid expansion, with 42% supportive and 43% opposed, while 91% of Democrats supported expansion, including 71% who expressed strong support.
There are a lot of cross currents running through the poll results related to the legislature, and we’ll be exploring them more after the holiday break – and, of course, will conduct regular polling during the legislative session.
And now for something completely different: Texas and the world. In another first for the state polling project started in 2008, we asked respondents to provide favorability ratings for a list of 12 countries of diplomatic interest to the U.S..
Great Britain and Australia tied with the highest favorability ratings (62%), followed by Canada and Japan, each at 60%. The lowest ratings were awarded to Russia and North Korea, each with only 7% favorability, and China earning an only slightly higher share of 10% (and Saudi Arabia barely ahead at 12%). See the poll summary for the complete list of 12 countries (Q19), which is of course an important factor in interpreting these numbers.
More specifically, on an issue at the center of global politics, we checked back in on Texans' views of U.S. support for Ukraine, asking for the third time since April, “Do you think the U.S. is doing too much, too little, or about the right amount in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?” About one-third say “the right amount” (34%), 29% said “too much," and 22% said “too little.” The plurality of Democrats (45%) said “the right amount,” while the plurality of Republicans said “too much” (44%). As the United States has increased support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the share saying the U.S. is doing too much has doubled since April 2022 (from 15%) while the share saying “the right amount” has increased by 5 points. The share saying “too little” has decreased from 39% to 22%.
This has been a busy end-of-year at the Texas Politics Project, during which these emails have been much less frequent. I’ve enjoyed seeing many of you at panels and public conversations in the run-up to the election and the many legislative previews held afterward, but also hope to return to a more regular email and writing schedule next year. Many thanks to those who invited me to your meetings and events over the last few months.
Best wishes to all of you for a happy, healthy, and restful holiday break. See you in the New Year and, as always, keep in touch.
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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