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With only four weeks remaining until Election Day, the door is slowly closing on the possibility of a Bill White victory over Gov. Rick Perry in this year’s gubernatorial contest. Over the past seven months, despite White and his supporters’ substantial advertising campaign and White’s tireless efforts to meet with voters throughout the state, White has been unable to significantly reduce the approximately six percent difference in the polls that has separated him from Perry.
The fact that White has been unable to narrow this gap is not especially surprising. The current state and national political context have conspired to force White to campaign against substantial political headwinds over the past seven months.
First, Texas continues to be a state in which a substantially larger proportion of voters identify with the Republican Party than with the Democratic Party. This is reflected in surveys that show Republicans with a 10 to 20 percent advantage among party identifiers (varying depending on sample population and question-wording), statewide vote results where Republicans on average outperform Democrats by about 15 percent, and the reality that no Democrat has won statewide office since 1994. While many cite Perry’s re-election in 2006 with only 39 percent of the vote as evidence of his limited support, they often neglect to mention that Republican Carole Keeton Strayhorn (running as an independent) took 18 percent of the vote that year (much of it from Perry). To top things off, this year, the Republican base is notably more mobilized than the Democratic base, which is especially relevant given the lower voter turnout in midterm elections (35 to 40 percent of Texas registered voters will cast a ballot in 2010, compared to 60 percent in 2008). Thus, from the start, White has been playing on an uneven field which has a built-in Republican advantage.
Second, approximately 50 percent of likely voters have consistently expressed approval of Perry’s performance as governor throughout the campaign. These are not outstanding numbers, but they demonstrate that on average a bare majority of Texas voters are relatively content with the prospects of four more years of Perry as governor. As a result, the White campaign has been challenged to reduce Perry’s approval rating and/or convince Perry supporters that White would do a better job than Perry as governor. Thus far neither White and his allies’ attacks on Perry nor White’s positive campaign messages have successfully met this challenge.
Third, 60 percent of likely Texas voters disapprove of President Barack Obama’s performance as president. While a vote for Bill White is not a vote for Barack Obama (as the Perry campaign would prefer voters believe), White is still hurt by the fact that his partisan affiliation is the same as that of the president (not to mention House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other national Democrats who are even less popular than President Obama in Texas).
White’s ability to rise to within striking distance of Perry following the March primaries, and then to keep Perry from breaking away over the ensuing seven months, is a testament to White’s impressive leadership credentials and skills as a campaigner and fundraiser. In the current political environment one could have envisioned White’s candidacy wilting in the summer heat, and that clearly did not happen. However, it is one thing to be down by two touchdowns in the first quarter, and another to be down by 14 midway through the fourth quarter. With early voting beginning in two weeks (October 18) and Election Day four weeks away, time is running out for White to close the electoral gap with Perry.
While White’s quest for the governorship is far from a lost cause, his only hope at this late stage is a game-changing event that dramatically alters the dynamics of the gubernatorial campaign. Such an act is unlikely to originate from an unforced error committed by the experienced, savvy and well-funded Perry camp.
A strong debate performance by White and/or a weak or gaffe-plagued debate performance by Perry could have potentially represented this type of game-changing event. However, due to Perry’s politically astute (though democratically objectionable) demand that White release additional tax returns (from his years in the Clinton administration and as chair of the Texas Democratic Party) in order for any debate to be held, and White’s refusal to release those returns, there will be no debates between the two candidates.
One can empathize with White’s objection to Perry’s unilateral attempt to set the conditions for the debates to take place. Nevertheless, White (not Perry) desperately needed the venue provided by the debates to potentially shake up the election and erase Perry’s current advantage among likely voters. By not releasing his tax returns,White might have lost his last realistic opportunity for the type of game-changing event needed to achieve victory in November.
Mark P. Jones is a Baker Institute Rice scholar, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.