Robert T. Garrett and Gromer Jeffers Jr. The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Two out of three Texans lost electricity, water or both in last month’s devastating winter storm, though it’s unclear their harrowing experiences will have lasting political consequences, according to a poll released Sunday by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler.
By a 2-to-1 margin, Texas registered voters say state and local leaders failed to adequately alert the public about the deadly punch the storm could deliver to power and water services so residents could prepare. Leaders underestimated the threat, a majority of Republicans and more than 70% of independents and Democrats believe.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to the arctic blast and prolonged blackouts and water outages divides Texans. The poll found 53% say the Republican governor did well or very well, while 46% say he performed either not well or not well at all.
“Memories of what leaders could have done may fade, because it is not clear that one entity is to blame,” said UT-Tyler political scientist Mark Owens, who directed the survey.
The poll, taken Feb. 22 to March 2, was conducted after the ice melted, power was restored and most residents regained water service, though some boil-water notices remained in effect. The poll surveyed 1,210 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.84 percentage points.
Interviews ended the same day Abbott lifted his July requirement of face coverings in public spaces and rolled back COVID-19 restrictions on businesses and public venues, so the poll was unable to gauge Texans’ reactions.
Before Abbott’s surprise announcement, though, the poll found 92% of registered voters wore a mask in the previous week.
Of those, 34% reported masking up because of the governor’s order — and half said they donned face coverings because local businesses posted signs requiring them.
“Mask-wearing increased after the statewide mandate, compared with 68% in April 2020, so I expect many will continue with the habit,” Owens said. He noted that 83% of respondents say their choice to wear a mask is personal and not affected by the state’s or local businesses’ requirements.
Abbott’s easing of coronavirus restrictions came one day before state public health commissioner John Hellerstedt, complying with a federal directive, declared teachers, school employees and child care workers eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
By a 3-to-1 margin, registered voters say they already have received one dose or are definitely or probably going to get vaccinated when more shots become available. Though 16% say they have decided they will not take the vaccine and 10% are unlikely to do so, the results should hearten those hoping for the state to achieve herd immunity.
As for how schools should proceed after the pandemic, 41% of respondents say all students should return, while 29% say a fully virtual curriculum should be available to those who want it and 28% want a hybrid of online and in-person instruction. A plurality of Democrats favor offering the 100% online option to parents. And 56% of Republicans want all instruction to be at school.
Poll respondent Sharon Marszalek was among those GOP-leaning voters eager to end the remote instruction experiment.
“Teachers say it was just a fiasco,” she said. “The kids, you know how smart they are. They found ways to pretend they were on the computer and they weren’t.
“Parents weren’t watching their kids,” who fell behind academically, said Marszalek, 78, a retired rural mail carrier in Kaufman County.
One-third of voters say COVID-19 has hurt their personal finances either a fair amount or a great deal. But there’s a racial disparity: Just 28% of whites say their economic situation has deteriorated, compared with 39% of Blacks and 41% of Hispanics.
The poll also was taken shortly after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said he regretted and had changed his mind about slipping off with his family to Cancún, Mexico, amid the power outages that affected more than 4 million Texans and inflicted widespread damage and hardship.
While in October, 44% of Texas’ registered voters had a favorable impression of Cruz and 37% did not, his numbers dipped last month to 42% favorable, 45% unfavorable.
“I guess he didn’t think it through,” said Marszalek, the Republican voter in Kemp. “There wasn’t anything he could have done: He was home freezing like the rest of us. But yeah, it didn’t look very good.”
On the Feb. 15-20 electricity outages, and how to avoid that happening again, most Texans prefer to increase energy production from natural gas and renewable energy, which are already the source of 73% of all power in the state. Just 16% of the public preferred to modernize coal-fired power plants.
Texas voters also strongly support keeping the state’s electricity grid independent but improving its capacity. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ transmission network includes all of the state except greater El Paso, parts of the Panhandle and parts of East Texas.
Asked if Texas should improve its own grid’s capacity or find ways to share with neighboring electricity networks, 70% say it should improve its own compared with 21% who want more collaboration with other regions’ grids. Among Democrats, the split was 59% for improving versus 33% for collaborating. But among Republicans, it was 81%-10%.
Forney bus monitor Arlena Jones, 64, is among Democrats who favor seeking ways to share.
“I was listening to other states who were partnering with others as far as the grid is concerned, and they have this kind of weather all the time and they said they were doing fine,” she said. “And so that was not a good thing on Texas’ part to not be partnering or friends with someone who could have helped us at that time.”
Austin Winstel, a 29-year-old Garland voter who works in sales, said it was important for lawmakers to follow through with accountability measures.
“They can’t just make a bunch of noise and not produce real change,” Winstel said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before and something has to be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Northeast Tarrant County computer engineer Bryan Frasier said Texas and California erred in abandoning the old model of electric utility monopolies. Deregulation has failed, he said.
“I’m a libertarian and believe there are very few things government should do,” he said. “Power and water and sewage are things that government should be doing.”
Thomas Jacob, 65, a Carrollton retiree, says Abbott bears some responsibility for the response to the winter event because he’s in charge of the state’s emergency and disaster response.
“They were not prepared,” he said.
But Jacob was most upset with Abbott for something that occurred after Jacob responded to the poll — Abbott’s decision to scrap the statewide mask mandate that was designed to help curb the coronavirus. Jacob, who is of Haitian descent, has received his vaccine but says it’s important to keep the mask mandate in place.
“He’s made me real mad by not requiring masks,” Jacob said. “It doesn’t make sense. The virus is still out there and people need to be protected.”
Despite COVID-19, a recession and the double whammy of blackouts and water outages, Abbott’s job approval has dipped only slightly and remains the most favorable among top state Republicans. By 53%-42%, voters say they trust Abbott to keep their communities safe and healthy during the virus outbreak.
The poll found 52% approve or strongly approve of the way Abbott is handling his job, while 31% disapprove or strongly disapprove. In October, his job rating was 54%-34% — just slightly more robust.
Though former President Donald Trump carried Texas in November by 6 percentage points, new President Joe Biden is more trusted by Texans to keep their communities safe from COVID-19. By a narrow margin of 51%-46%, state voters express confidence in Biden’s handling of the pandemic. In October, just 44% trusted Trump to handle it, while 54% did not.
By a plurality, state voters approve of Biden’s performance as president, 47%-40%.
Owens, the pollster, noted that before Biden’s Feb. 26 visit to Houston to witness post-storm relief efforts and COVID-19 vaccinations, his job rating was almost even — 43%-42% in this poll.
As the poll by The News and UT-Tyler went into the field, Attorney General Ken Paxton was dogged by negative publicity, such as accusations by former employees that he swapped political favors for a donor’s help with a home remodel and job for his alleged “mistress.”
Though he flew to the snowy intermountain West and not a tropical beach as Cruz did, and had some official business, Paxton’s trip to Utah during the recent storm, first disclosed by The News, raised questions about why he, too, chose to leave the state as many constituents shivered amid outages and frontier-style living conditions.
When poll respondents were asked if Paxton has the integrity to be the state’s top lawyer, 32% agreed he does, 29% disagreed and 39% were unsure.
Paxton, who’s been under indictment for five years, accused of defrauding investors in a North Texas technology company, gets the benefit of the doubt, said poll respondent Frasier, the computer engineer who lives in Tarrant County’s booming Alliance corridor.
“I know that Paxton has had some allegations but nothing has ever amounted to anything,” said Frasier, 44, who leans Republican. “If there’s no formal charges, there’s probably nothing there.”
By 38%-27%, registered voters approve of the performance of Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor, and by 40%-26%, of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, another Republican. In the case of both men, large numbers had no opinion or said they didn’t know enough about them to answer.
Other issues
Texans support some of the more controversial proposals that Abbott, Patrick and many in the Republican-controlled Legislature are pushing in this year’s session.
The poll found 66% of respondents support requiring the national anthem to be performed before sporting events. Only 34% were against mandating the Francis Scott Key poem.
While it’s not surprising that 88% of Republicans back mandating the national anthem, the requirement is supported by 54% of independents and 53% of Democrats.
Patrick, the president of the Senate, has proposed the Star Spangled Banner Protection Act that would require the anthem to be played at all events that receive public funding. He made the move last month after it was revealed by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban that the anthem was not being played at Mavericks home games. After the controversy, the Mavericks returned to playing the anthem.
Though critics say the national anthem issue isn’t essential and that Patrick is grandstanding for political purposes, most Texans appear to support the lieutenant governor’s stand.
“I knew it was a winner when it came out of his mouth,” said political consultant Bill Miller. “It shows that seeming to be unpatriotic is the fastest way to lose friends or influence.”
But Irving’s Kevin Bates, a 35-year-old gig worker, called Patrick’s bill unnecessary.
“It’s kind of dumb, especially because they didn’t used to play it at all,” he said. “It’s basically just being done for show.”
When those polled were asked to rank five of the emergency items Abbott has given to the Legislature, election integrity came out first. The top priority of 35% of poll respondents, it drew support from Democrats, Republicans, independents and all racial demographics.
Protecting businesses from COVID-19 lawsuits ranked as voters’ second favorite among Abbott’s priorities, at 23%, followed by penalizing cities that reduce police budgets (18%) and developing high-speed internet for underserved areas (15%).
Also, 46% of voters support withholding sales tax revenue from cities that redirect police funds to support other community programs, while 30% oppose the idea. Of those polled, 44% endorse the state taking over police departments from cities that redirect police funds to community programs, compared with 31% who reject such action.
While poll respondents tended to favor conservative issues, they also were supportive of expanding gambling in Texas. According to the survey, 57% of Texans support casino gambling, historically a non-starter in the Republican-controlled Legislature. Among Democrats, 66% were supportive, along with 59% of independents and 50% of Republicans.
Religious groups have successfully lobbied lawmakers against an expansion of gambling, but the poll found that white evangelicals supported casino gambling by 52% to 38%. Of those polled, 65% said expanding gambling would help the state’s economy, while only 22% said it would not help much or at all.
Sports betting was favored 43% to 26%, while 31% said it didn’t matter to them.
“People in Texas gamble,” said Miller, the veteran Austin lobbyist and GOP consultant. “They gamble illegally or leave the state to gamble legally.”
On the nation’s deepening divide over election laws, the poll found that Texans support requirements beyond signature verification for absentee ballots by a whopping 63% to 17%, and 20% were neutral.
“The Republican Party of Texas is in tune with what is important to all Texans,” said Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano. “We’re working hard on solutions to address problems that matter most to our constituents.”
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, absentee and mail-in ballots played a key role in the 2020 race for president.
Before and after his defeat, Trump claimed widespread election fraud because of mail-in ballots, but his allegations that the election was stolen from him were rejected by courts and election officials.
Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat who leads the Texas House Democratic Caucus, said all Texans want election security. But Republicans promoted the false claims that the election was stolen from Trump, Turner said, adding that lawmakers should focus on ideas to make it easier for residents to vote.
The GOP-led Legislature has a history of voter suppression tactics, including passage of an unfair voter identification law, Turner said.
