Texans want their next governor to prioritize immigration and COVID-19
Washington, DC, December 1, 2021 – A Spectrum/Ipsos Texas poll fielded November 16-26, 2021 asked Texans about the 2022 statewide primaries for governor and other important state issues. Starting off with the current governor’s approval rating, 45% of Texans approve of the way Greg Abbot is handling the job, unchanged from when we last asked in August.
Texans view immigration (35%) as the state’s top issue for the next governor to address, followed by stopping the spread of COVID-19 (25%), and the economy/jobs (24%). Almost all registered voters in Texas (94%) believe it is important for the next governor to share their values, and 90% believe they should have managerial experience. Only half (50%) believe it is important for them to be an outsider or independent from politics. Current governor Greg Abbott is believed to best exemplify managerial experience by registered voters (35%), while recently announced candidate Beto O’Rourke is believed to best represent someone who shares registered voters’ values (31%).
Finally, Texans are deeply split along party lines on the issue of abortion with less than half of Texans supporting the new abortion restrictions in Texas (42%) and the law that allows people to sue anyone who has helped a woman obtain an abortion after six weeks (34%).
About the Study
This Spectrum News/Ipsos Texas poll was conducted November 16-26, 2021, by Ipsos using the KnowledgePanel®. This poll is based on a representative sample of 2,021 residents of Texas, age 18 or older.
The study was conducted in both English and Spanish. The data were weighted to adjust for gender by age, race/ethnicity, education, and language proficiency. The demographic benchmarks came from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) from the US Census Bureau. The weighting categories were as follows:
- Gender (Male, Female) by Age (18–29, 30-44, 45-59 and 60+)
- Race/Hispanic Ethnicity (White Non-Hispanic, Black Non-Hispanic, Other Non-Hispanic Hispanic)
- Education (Less than High School graduate, High School graduate, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
- Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
- Household Income (Under $25,000, $25,000-$49,999, $50,000-$74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,999, $150,000+)
- Language proficiency (English proficient, Bilingual, Spanish proficient, Non-Hispanic, not asked)
- Party ID (Republican, Democrat, Independent, Other/Refused)
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. Among registered voters, it is 4.0 percentage points. The margin of error takes into account the design effect, which was 3.01 for all adults and 2.87 for registered voters. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.
This poll is trended with a Spectrum News/Ipsos Texas poll, conducted August 6-13, 2021. That poll is based on a representative sample of 1,358 residents of Texas, age 18 or older. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of error takes into account the design effect.
This poll is also trended with a Spectrum News/Ipsos Texas poll, conducted October 7-14, 2020. That poll contained 1,000 residents of Texas. Note that this study was conducted using opt-in sample and therefore has a credibility interval, a measure of precision used for Ipsos online polls, of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all respondents. While significant changes in data points can largely be attributed to the rapidly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic, the methodological shift from opt-in to KnowledgePanel may have also generated a slight mode effect.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Mallory Newall
Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 374-2613
Kate Silverstein
Media Relations, US
Public Affairs
+1 718 755-8829
[email protected]
About Ipsos
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Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts, and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions, and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers, or employees. We serve more than 5,000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.
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