Greg Abbott Continues to Lead Beto O’Rourke in Texas Governor’s Race

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With just over two weeks to go before early voting begins in the 2022 election, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is showing no signs of losing ground to his Democratic challenger, Beto O'Rourke.

A new poll released on Wednesday has Governor Abbott leading O'Rourke by 8 percent among likely voters, according to KXAN. The poll from Marist shows Abbott up 52 to 44 percent. However, the race tightens if you poll only registered voters. Among registered voters, Abbott is only up 4 percent, 49 percent to 45 percent.

Early voting for the 2022 election begins on Monday, October 24th. You can get more details about the important election dates here.

According to KXAN, the director of the poll said the results show that there are more Republican voters in Texas, and that more of them plan on voting compared to Democrats:

In a statement about the poll results, Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said, “Governor Abbott is advantaged by the fact that Republicans outnumber Democrats in the state, and more Republicans than Democrats definitely plan to vote. In order to pull off an upset, O’Rourke needs to bank on the greater enthusiasm of his supporters translating into a greater turnout among younger, independent, urban, and suburban voters.”

A poll released last month from Emerson College matched these latest findings, which also showed Abbott ahead by eight percentage points at that time.

One interesting aspect of the poll showed that neither candidate is all that popular.

According to the poll, 46 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of the governor while 43 percent had a favorable view. For O'Rourke, 44 percent held an unfavorable view while just 39 percent had a favorable view of the Texas Democrat.