McConaughey Looms Larger
as Voters Favorite Candidate

Capitol Inside
September 19, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott's free-falling popularity ratings took another bad turn on Sunday with a new poll that found Oscar-winning Austin resident Matthew McConaughey with a significant lead in a hypothetical matchup between the two for the state's top job in 2022.

Conducted last week by the Dallas Morning News and University of Texas Tyler, the survey showed McConaughey with a 9 point lead over the incumbent Republican with support from 44 percent of 1,148 registered voters in the sample.

The poll found Abbott leading Democrat Beto O'Rourke by a mere 5 percentage points with 42 percent support in a potential general election pairing next year with the former congressman and U.S. Senate candidate in 2018.

Fifty-five percent of the Texas voters in the survey opposed Abbott's ban on school mask mandates compared to 45 percent who agreed with the governor. Texans were split on the governor's ban on vaccine mandates with 49 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed.

But McConaughey fared almost as well as O'Rourke among Democratic voters - including 65 percent who said they would back the actor in a duel with Abbott. But 44 percent of the independent voters and 26 percent of Republicans in the DMN/UT Tyler poll favored McConaughey over Abbott.

The survey offered a piece of positive news for the Republican governor - finding Abbott with substantial leads over primary challengers Don Huffines and Allen West in potential runoffs. Abbott was favored by 70 percent of the GOP voters in the poll in a showdown with Huffines and 65 percent in a potential overtime clash with West. Huffines had 15 percent support compared to 20 percent for West, the Texas Republican Party chairman for a year before stepping down this summer so he could run against Abbott instead.

Abbott has appeared to be running as though he's invincible against any of the potential challengers that Democrats could nominate to challenge him in the 2022 general election. Abbott hasn't been taking McConaughey seriously - however - and the poll findings suggest that could be a mistake.

McConaughey hasn't said whether he'd run as a Democrat, Republican or independent if he enters the governor's race in 2022.

more to come ...