Texas Gov. Rick Perry has his largest lead over former Houston Mayor Bill White thus far in the campaign, according to a new statewide poll for KENS 5 and Texas Belo television stations.
That's the highlight of a telephone poll conducted last week questioning 1,000 likely Texas voters about their preferences in the Texas gubernatorial race and other campaign issues.
With just about four weeks until the November election, the poll found that Perry is putting distance between himself and White.
The current lead is 50 percent to 36 percent. That's the largest margin by Perry so far in this campaign.
Nine percent of voters remain undecided. Another three percent of the likely vote goes to third-party candidates. The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 3.7 percent.
Perry has his largest lead in West Texas, the Rio Grande Valley and -- surprisingly -- here in San Antonio, where the poll shows Perry getting 49 percent of the vote to White's 36 percent.
White has spent a lot of time and money campaigning in San Antonio, his home town, but the poll shows the momentum remaining with Perry.
"Gov. Perry starts out his campaign with a big advantage," said David Iannelli of Public Strategies, which conducted the poll. "That is, counter to the rest of the nation, the majority of Texans think the state is heading in the right direction."
Our poll shows 52 percent of voters think the state is heading in the right direction.
Important numbers.
13 as in days left before early voting begins
4 as in weeks left before election day
50 Rick is over that allegedly magic hump that incumbents are supposed to reach
36 Bill White can't seem to break into the mid forties and in this one even into the high thirties
10 as in millions that Rick has in the bank
3 as in Bill White doesn't even have 3 million in the bank
Bill White has way more Facebook likes and comments though (link)... and a lot of trial lawyer friends who are running newspaper ads for him...
