A new survey from UTSA’s Center for Public Opinion Research indicated that in bright blue San Antonio, support has been growing for Democrat Colin Allred in his uphill race against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
A UTSA poll conducted Oct. 15-20 indicated that Allred’s lead over Cruz in San Antonio increased slightly in the past month, from a 44-28% race in September, to a 48-30% race in the most recent survey.
Statewide, polls shows Cruz leading the race by about one percentage point.
But higher turnout in more Democratic areas could have an impact on the race.
So far, Texas’ major urban centers including San Antonio have been exceeding turnout expectations in the first days of early voting — giving new hope to some Democratic campaign professionals who believe Texas could be closer to turning blue than they initially thought.
The UTSA poll, which launched at the beginning of this year, has made some changes to its methodology since the last survey: This time it used only San Antonio voters, instead of voters from across Bexar County, to avoid confusion about questions that only pertain to San Antonio voters.
Since the UTSA poll is new, whether it reliably predicts the outcome of San Antonio’s vote remains untested, and it’s also unclear how the change in methodology will affect its results — but in a community where local polling is scarce, it gives a rare window into local voter sentiment ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The survey was conducted using online surveys to query 656 San Antonio likely voters in both English and Spanish. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.8%.
“This is probably largely a name recognition thing,” said Bryan Gervais, the center’s director and an associate professor in UTSA’s Department of Political Science and Geography, who pointed to Allred’s steady rise locally since UTSA’s first survey in June.
“Not many folks have heard of [Allred]… now they’ve probably seen some of the ads that are out,” he said.
Allred, a Dallas congressman, has been raising big money and outspending Cruz for much of the Texas Senate race. In the past three months, however, Cruz ramped up his own campaign advertising, narrowing the spending gap in the final stretch.
Gervais noted that while support for Allred is about even with support for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris among San Antonio voters in the most recent poll, Cruz is lagging behind the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
“Cruz is running behind Trump among San Antonio voters,” Gervais said. “That’s been a trend as well, but his numbers haven’t changed much.”
Allred’s growing support comes as the same respondents to UTSA’s poll indicated their overall preference for Democratic candidates has weakened over the past month.
In UTSA’s September survey, San Antonio was riding the high of a new presidential nominee in Harris, and displaying overall enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.
The October survey showed Harris leading Trump 49-34% among San Antonio voters, down from her 54-35% lead in September.
Voters in the September survey said they’d choose Democratic candidates over Republican candidates 51-35%. In October, that margin had decreased to 46-36%.
Though UTSA’s past surveys excluded residents outside of San Antonio when asking San Antonio-specific questions, Gervais said the decision to switch from Bexar County voters to San Antonio voters was needed for overall clarity.
On this polling memo, residents outside of Bexar County were removed from the September responses to allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.
San Antonio City Charter
Among the other changes made, Gervais said the most recent poll switched from asking voters how they felt about descriptions of proposed City Charter amendments on the Nov. 5 ballot, to instead presenting them with the exact ballot language.
The result was an overall improved outlook for the charter amendments, Gervais said, though voters may not get the full picture about what they’re supporting.
For example, Proposition E would increase City Council members’ pay from roughly $47,000 per year to $70,000 per year.
When asked about giving council members a pay increase, the September survey found support for the idea was underwater, with about 27% supporting and 51% opposing.
In the latest survey, which mimicked ballot language asking whether voters wanted to “set and limit the compensation for City Council members and the Mayor at $70,200 and $87,800,” the idea was supported by 52% of respondents.
“Most voters don’t realize the low salaries for the mayor and the council relative to their cities,” Gervais said. “So when they see ‘set and limit compensation’ for City Council… what [they] believe is that this means that it’s going to be reduced or limited to this.”
San Antonio’s Prop C
Of the six proposed San Antonio City Charter amendments on the Nov. 5 ballot, most of the attention has been spent on Proposition C, which would undo caps voters set in 2018 on the city manager’s pay and tenure.
UTSA’s most recent survey suggested 43% of voters were supportive of Prop C, 27% were opposed to the idea, and 30% were unsure.
That’s a change from UTSA’s September survey, which used wording different from the actual ballot language, and showed the proposition was even less popular, opposed by 53% of respondents said they did not support removing the caps.
Big money has been spent trying to influence voters on these issues — in particular Prop C — but the most recent survey indicated that 72% of voters were totally unfamiliar with the charter amendments.
That’s down from 81% who were unfamiliar a month ago.
“Virtually nobody in our sample, just about nobody, had been contacted by a campaign” trying to sway them on the charter amendments, Gervais said.
