While I have serious doubts about this new poll, it is a poll of likely voters in Texas and it does show about a four-point spread between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke among a sample of 519:
CBS NEWS – Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has a slim margin over Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the Texas Senate race, according to a new poll by CBS Dallas-Fort Worth/Dixie Strategies.
The poll asked likely voters whom they would vote for if the election was held today. Forty-six percent of respondents said that they would support Cruz, while 42 percent would vote for O’Rourke. The differential of four points was within the margin of error of 4.3 points, meaning that the two candidates are statistically tied according to this poll.
Forty percent of independents said that they would vote for Cruz, and 38 percent said that they would support O’Rourke. O’Rourke is looking to win over independents who may be displeased with the Republican Party and engage new Democratic voters.
Here’s the lowdown on the poll itself:
This report contains the results of a telephone survey of N= 519 “likely” voters in the State of Texas. Responses to this survey were gathered September 6-7, 2018.
Dixie Strategies’ polling is conducted by automated dialing services for landline phones and live calls for cellular phones. The model for this survey was created using a modeling software package specifically designed for Dixie Strategies, using a combination of random and stratified sampling. All respondents interviewed in this study were part of a fully representative sample based on the latest voter registration figures and turnout models built using recent election data. The confidence interval associated with a sample of this type is such that 95% of the time results will be within the margin of error of the “true values” where “true values” refers to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every “likely” voter in the state.
A statistical tie? Maybe I’m in denial, but I just don’t believe the race is this close. It is one poll and I’d like to see more polling on this among likely voters before I believe this is an accurate trend.
Here’s the poll if you want to read it:
CBS 11 TX Statewide Survey by on Scribd