POLLING

Gov. Greg Abbott’s openness to marijuana decriminalization shows that the state, while conservative, isn’t immune to larger trends.

In this edition of TribCast, Ross talks to pollsters Joshua Blank, James Henson and Daron Shaw about the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, focused on the 2022 elections and this year’s legislative issues.

Most voters approve of using state money to add border barriers between Texas and Mexico. But 57% disapprove of a new abortion law’s provision allowing lawsuits against people who help someone get the procedure.

It’s fashionable to gripe about polls, but they can expose voter sentiment and reveal, sometimes, why elected officials act the way they do.

The relevance of political polling has been on a gradual downward slide because the accuracy of those blow-by-blow percentages we media types used to live by aren’t what they used

In this edition of the TribCast, Ross talks to pollsters Joshua Blank, James Henson and Daron Shaw about the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll and what voters are thinking about issues argued in the Legislature, immigration and border security, voting law and the pandemic.

In the June poll, 47% of voters said they were coming and going as they were before the pandemic, while 39% said they were leaving the house but exercising caution.

The June 2021 poll shows that 44% of Texans approve of Abbott’s job as governor, while 44% disapprove. His approval rating from Texas voters is better than those of Joe Biden, U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton and House Speaker Dade Phelan.

The Texas Legislature has a Republican majority, and knowing what most voters want isn't the best way to predict what lawmakers will do. You have to know what Republican voters want.

The Legislature gaveled out at the end of month after passing bills on abortion, guns, police budgets and the Texas power grid. Here's how Texas voters feel about the results.

With no evidence of widespread voting fraud to cite, Republicans are shifting their argument to insist that new voting restrictions are needed to forestall even isolated instances of ineligible voters casting ballots.

The issues getting attention from Gov. Greg Abbott are doing double-duty: They're attractive to Republican voters in Texas — and beyond.

A session transformed by COVID-19 protocols is giving way to a political cycle already disrupted by the pandemic’s effects on state government.

Polling suggests that along with an increasing number of vaccinated people without masks, there will be many others who are unmasked but unvaccinated — posing a public health hazard to themselves and to other unvaccinated people with whom they come into contact.

SAN ANTONIO – The race for a COVID-19 vaccine continues as the pandemic rages on throughout the nation and globe. In Bexar County, two-thirds of likely voters who participated in the Bexar Facts-KSAT-San Antonio Report Poll say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available, but only half would get it if one is available before the year ends. Trials are currently underway for a COVID-19 vaccine around the world, including San Antonio. According to CNN, early results from a clinical trial show Johnson and Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine produced a strong immune response among participants. Also on KSAT.com:What we know about COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in San AntonioScreening underway for COVID-19 vaccine trialPush to bring coronavirus vaccines to the poor faces trouble

A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.