Insight: Texas Politics Project releases latest polling data in Senate election

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The Texas Politics Project released its latest look at where some voters stand in the Senate election.

The poll showed incumbent Ted Cruz has a wider lead over Congressman Colin Allred by seven points, with 51% for Cruz and 44% for Allred.

On this week's State of Texas, KXAN's Ryan Chandler got some insight about the numbers from James Henson, executive director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas and John Moritz, chief politics reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

Read the transcript of the interview or watch in the video player above. Some responses have been edited for clarity.

Ryan Chandler: Your poll gives Cruz a seven point lead. That's a little bit more favorable than we've seen. Kind of the average is like three to five points for Cruz. But I'm wondering, how does that rank with how say Beto O'Rourke was polling at this point in the race in 2018. Do we have any insight?

James Henson: Yeah, you know, it's pretty close, actually. I mean, I think Beto O'Rourke might have been doing a point or two better. And in the rollout materials that we released to the poll today, we've got a section that looks at Beto O'Rourke in at this phase in 2018 and compares to where Allred was, and they're pretty similar. I think O'Rourke might have been a point or two better overall. I think the most interesting thing in that poll was, in that comparison, you're talking about undecided voters, and where the campaigns are targeting is that O'Rourke in '18 Allred in '24 in October, they look very similar among independents, right? People with loose party attachments, only eight or 9% of the electorate probably true independents, but remarkably close, you know? And so I think if you're Colin Allred, you feel like that's a pretty good sign. With a few weeks to go, our poll was in the field the first week of October, more or less, you know. And you know, you talk about the average being four, five, seven, when you're looking at polling estimates, it's within about the right range. And look, we've been a little bit on the outside of that. What we're getting is that there are a lot of Democrats and a lot of too many Democrats, I should say, that still don't have a strong opinion of Colin Allred. He's done a good job of driving that number down, but in this poll, in our favorability item, we still had about 17% of Democrats not committed to Allred. And again, that's room for growth, but it's also, you know, the classic democratic problem of having hard-to-reach voters and maybe lacking some of the wherewithal to actually get to them. That's the big question.

Chandler: Yeah, eight to 9% of the electorate is undecided. That's not a lot, but it may be enough. You remember O'Rourke lost by less than three points in 2018. So if they're gettable, that could help Allred. Both campaigns are trying to flex their crossover appeal. Right? You have Ted Cruz touting democratic endorsements and vice versa with Allred. You did some reporting about how each campaign is trying to do that. Can you elaborate a little bit on on why crossing over to the other party may help these campaigns.

John Moritz: Well, crossover is nothing new in Texas. It goes back to the 1950s. Mostly because there's always been the dominant party, and so not everybody in that dominant party is going to be on board, and sometimes not everybody in the minority party is going to be on board. But what the what the key here is is, for Allred, it shows, or it reinforces his message that he is the most bipartisan member of the Texas delegation. And for Cruz, it sort of softens the notion that he is this hard right partisan, no compromise, take no prisoners. If he can get a Kim Ogg, even though she was voted out of her own party in the primary, if he could get some of these sheriffs and elected officials in South Texas, many of whom are Hispanic, to basically become his voice vouch for him -- that does take some of the rough edge off of Ted Cruz's reputation for the last 12 years or more.

Watch the full interview on KXAN's State of Texas Sunday at 8:30 a.m.