Millennials vs Everyone else in the Texas Midterm elections

On November 6th, millions of Americans will head to the polls for the midterm elections. But before they do, we wanted to share some political poll survey results collected just before the election. We focused on 4 key battleground states: Texas, Tennessee, Nevada and North Dakota. Here’s what you need to know before election day! Full results here.

According to our recent poll conducted among 200 registered Texas voters at the end of October, the Texas midterms are following in the footsteps of past races. The traditionally conservative state was leaning red leading up to the election, with Ted Cruz leading the polls by a healthy margin, and Immigration Reform taking its place as the leading issue among Texans.

As expected for the border state, the key issue for respondents was Immigration reform, of which urban and rural areas showed different preferences in who was the best to handle it. Respondents from Austin, although in agreement with more conservative cities that Immigration reform was the state’s critical issue, overwhelmingly leaned towards candidate Beto O’Rourke (D) for Senate and Democrats for the House as the best option.

Millennials (age 25-34), often the generation accused of ruining everything from the nuclear family structure to napkins, once again stand out as the black sheep as the only demographic group in Texas with intent to vote Democrat in the coming Midterm Elections. The primary issue among this demographic was revealed to be Healthcare reform, an issue that Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke has elevated in his campaign.

But will the Millennial vote make the difference? Millennial men and women were at odds with each other in their preferences. Our study showed an inverse in attitudes between the House and Senate, with the majority of Millennial males intending to vote Democrat for the House, but preferring Cruz nearly 15% more than O’Rourke. In contrast, Millennial females preference for O’Rourke was nearly twice that of Cruz, but the majority intended to vote Republican for the House.

 

 

Millennial Top Motivating Issues

Younger voters (18-24) not only expressed enthusiasm for voting in the Texas midterms, but have already started. 80% had already voted or intended to vote early. Perhaps surprisingly, this group showed conservative preferences, expressing intent to vote for Cruz for Senate and Republicans for the House. However, the conservative lead was slim and more than a third of respondents were yet undecided about their voting intentions at of the time of the survey’s completion, meaning that there is still an opportunity for either side to win younger voters.

Older demographic groups were expectedly consistent in their voting preferences, with more than half claiming intent to vote Ted Cruz for Senate and Republicans for the House. 66% said they were more enthusiastic than they had been about past Congressional elections, and more than half had already cast their ballots. The rest intend to vote either early or on election day—no one is sitting this race out.

No one is sitting this one out–voter enthusiasm across demographic groups.

Results from this survey suggest that Texas is showing an enthusiastic red wave, but there is still room for this election to go either way with younger participants on the fence.

Check out the full results of our Texas political poll survey here.