In the newest live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talk about the Texas Senate primaries, what the latest Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll says about Trump’s approval, and where the public stands on various proposed structural reforms to the Supreme Court, presidency, and U.S. Senate.
We cover:
The Texas Senate primaries are wide open — and don’t trust anyone who tells you otherwise. On the Republican side, Ken Paxton — a far-right attorney general with corruption problems, both personally and professionally — is leading Sen. John Cornyn in the polls by about 3 points, with Rep. Wesley Hunt pulling 20%. The race is almost certainly headed to a runoff, and Paxton looks favored there since Hunt’s entry ate into Cornyn’s support.
On the Democratic side, it’s state Rep. James Talarico vs. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and the 50+1 polling average has them essentially tied.
But here’s the thing: Historically, primary polls in statewide races miss by about 13 points on margin, and the leader in the polls ends up losing roughly one in five times. With the low-quality polling we’re getting in this race — small samples, long field dates, and partisan-sponsored surveys that disagree wildly — it’s wise to expect a surprise.Trump has hit an all-time low in our Strength In Numbers/Verasight survey. The latest monthly poll, fielded February 18-20, has Trump at 37% approval and 59% disapproval — both all-time worsts in our survey. The biggest driver of this drop is erosion in his approval on immigration and deportations, following the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January. There’s evidence these events have also hurt Trump on crime and public safety. After all, who feels safe in public when people are being killed by federal agents in their neighborhood?
Voters care about prices, not border security. In our poll, a third of voters rank prices and inflation as their number one issue, with jobs and the economy at 16%. Border security, Trump’s strongest issue, is the top issue for just 3%. The issues that play to Democrats’ strengths are the ones voters currently actually care about.
Americans support several major structural reforms. Our survey found overwhelming support for Supreme Court term limits (net +50), strong support for Puerto Rico statehood (+27) and limits on presidential pardon power, and modest support for expanding the court from 9 to 13 justices (+7, with a third undecided).
The one exception is statehood for Washington, D.C., which is net -4 overall and even among Democrats, only gets 45% in favor. That’s a problem, but it suggests Democratic leaders could increase support by making the case to their voters. This gets at a bigger theme of the show: Public opinion isn’t some organic, immovable force. Elites shape it, and Republicans have been much better at that than Democrats have.
If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned newsy topics or deep dives and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!
You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:
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