Back on May 25, Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke interrupted Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s press conference on the Uvalde school shooting, shouting, “This is on you!” The moment was something of a Rorschach test. Many Texas Democrats saw it as O’Rourke expressing the raw anger and anguish of Texas parents worried about their children’s safety, and contended that Texans would gravitate to O’Rourke and his support for gun control. Many Texas Republicans saw O’Rourke as a self-aggrandizing narcissist, turning a briefing on the shooting into a political stunt, and contended that Texans would gravitate to Abbott, recoiling from O’Rourke’s self-centered theatrics.
The last poll before the Uvalde shooting on May 24 was conducted by the Dallas Morning News in the first week of May, showing Abbott leading O’Rourke by seven points, 46 percent to 39 percent.
Since then, at least five separate surveys of Texans’ preferences in the gubernatorial race have been conducted.
In the second week of June, Blueprint polling offered the first and most surprising result, showing Abbott leading by an astounding 57 percent to 39 percent.
Quinnipiac University’s survey in mid-June put Abbott ahead by five points, 48 percent to 43 percent — a much closer than margin than Quinnipiac’s previous survey of the state in December, which put Abbott head by 15.
The mid-June University of Texas survey put Abbott ahead by six points, 45 percent to 39 percent.
The late June CBS News/YouGov survey put Abbott head by eight points, 49 percent to 41 percent.
The University of Houston survey, asking questions in late June to early July, gave O’Rourke his best poll so far, with Abbott leading by five points, 49 percent to 44 percent.
In other words, almost two months after O’Rourke’s big moment, not much has changed in the governor’s race. The incumbent was leading by mid to upper single-digit percentage points before the shooting, and the incumbent is leading by mid to upper single-digit percentage points before the shooting. Sometimes moments that seem like a big deal at the time turn out to be footnotes in the course of a campaign.