Neal Dikeman
Feb 28, 20222 min
Texas Free Press sent an emailed Strawpoll on Feb 27 to publicly available emails of c. 3,000 Democratic and Republican party leaders in Texas, predominantly State and County Chairs and Officers, and Precinct Chairs.
The overall effective response rate was 2.5%. The snap Strawpoll results show some similarities, and some notable differences, to the recently published full Emerson College, and UT/Texas Tribune polls of registered and likely primary voters, and we expect the results represent an indication of internal party leadership voter feeling and enthusiasm entering the primary, not indicative of likely outcome of across likely primary voters. The Republican response rate was c. 5x higher than the Democratic response rate. Only selected races were polled.
For Rep Governor, challenger Don Huffines showed much higher Strawpoll support than in the main published polls.
Ken Paxton showed a clear majority of support of Republican Strawpoll respondents, compared to the published polls showing Paxton in a fight for a runoff. George P Bush showed significantly lower support than in published polls.
Joe Jaworski showed a clear majority of the Strawpoll among Democratic respondees, unlike published polls with show Garza firmly in the lead.
Incumbent Republican Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller showed a strong Strawpoll response of 3:1 his two challengers. The downballot response dropout rate from Governor to Ag Commissioner among Republicans was 7%.
Incumbent Wayne Christian showed a strong Strawpoll majority in the Republican RRC race. Newcomer Oil & Gas Attorney Sarah Stogner came in second, and most surprisingly, 8% selected the recently deceased Marvin Summers, a fact one would expect party leadership to know. The downballot response dropout rate from Governor to RRC among Republicans was 19%.
In the Democrat Comptroller's Race public accountant Janet Dudding showed 3:1 Strawpoll support over the other two candidates.
On the key nonpartisan icebreaker levity question as to which Girl Scout Cookie is the best, the results surprisingly indicated a sharp partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats. Most shockingly, over 20% of Republican respondees declined to answer the question, vs 100% response rate to the question from Democrats.
Margin of Error was not calculated, and the Democratic response rate was too low to draw conclusions. Full data is not published, the responses were anonymous. Respondees were allowed to skip questions, and indicate the primary or convention they intended to vote in. Some portion of respondees indicating they would or had voted in the Republican primary appear to have indicated responses on Democratic party questions. Green Party leadership response rate was zero, and Libertarian Party response rate, while similar to the overall, was too low to provide useful conclusions. All respondees indicated they had or would vote in the 2022 primary or convention.