The University of Texas (2/24-3/6, GOP primary voters):
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R): 36
Rick Perry (R-inc): 30
Other: 11
Undecided: 24
(MoE: ±5.8%)
With a rather portly MoE and an extended polling period, take this one with as many grains of salt as you wish. The last time we dipped our toes into the Lone Star state, Public Policy Polling released a survey in February showing Hutchison creaming Perry by a 56-31 margin; Team Perry must be relatively ecstatic to be seeing numbers like these instead. Burnt Orange Report‘s Phillip Martin offers his take:
While I still contend that polls are more or less meaningless at this stage of the game — as evidenced by 25% undecided — this should push back on the (worthless) conventional wisdom that Rick Perry is somehow out of this race. I still think Perry will win in the primary — he has a presence in the state, he is more connected with the hardcore base voters that will absolutely turn out to vote, and he’s a cyborg that never sleeps so he’ll be able to campaign 3-4 times more than Hutchison.
The UT poll also includes twelve head-to-head match-ups for Hutchison’s senate seat (assuming a vacancy occurs). Since front page real estate on SSP is a hot commodity, I won’t post the full list here, but the results are pretty predictable — Republicans lead most of the hypothetical match-ups by small margins, with huge chunks of undecided voters. In other words: it’s really too early to make sense of a largely undefined field. To see the full numbers for yourselves, click here.
Oh, and speaking of this race’s lack of definition… unnamed sources are telling Roll Call that Hutchison is likely to remain in the Senate while she wages a primary campaign against Perry. (Discussion of this point is already well underway in DTM,B!’s diary.) So, if Perry survives net year, we may not have an open seat Senate race to discuss here at all… unless KBH decides to throw in the towel in 2012, which I suppose isn’t out of the question.
Also a possibility she tries to stay in the senate but starts to struggle because Perry begins outcampaigning her. If she just misses votes he could use that against her – neglecting the states interests. So she could end up resigning closer to the primary.
what race exactly have all these Senate contenders filed for? The 2012 Senate race?
How does fundraising work then? Like is it $2300 for the entire 6 duration is the maximum?
Does that then mean one can file and start raising money for a race then the day the Senator is swarn in? I mean, Senators get 6 years to fundraise, so should challengers.
a strong viable candidate ready to be running in case the highly unpopular perry somehow does win his primary.
and Palin is insanely popular among Texas Repubs, and will carry Perry over the hump.
The question is whether the Dems have a candidate ready, if they do, they have a good chance to beat Perry.
I think Bill White/John Sharp should enter the Governor’s race. If KBH wins the primary, the Dem Gov candidate will get some valuable name recognition for the Senate race.
He’s dead. There is no horse race. Perry polls the same anemic numbers in both polls. We could hope he wins a nasty primary and she retires next summer, but the worst case of her staying in the Senate and beating him easily seems sadly likely.