The presidential race might be tighter than usual in Texas, but a new survey found the state’s voters leaning the same way they have in the last nine elections.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton among likely voters in the state 39%-32%, a new Texas Lyceum poll shows. Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson picks up the support of 9% and Green Party nominee Jill Stein garners 3%, according to the poll.
A sizable 17% said they don’t know who they’ll vote for.
Among a broader sample of registered voters, Trump leads Clinton in a four-way race by just a single point, 30%-29%, but both Johnson and Stein will be on the Texas ballot in November.
The poll showed a yawning racial gap in the state’s electorate. Trump holds a large lead over Clinton among white voters, 54%-19%, while the Democratic nominee claims advantages among African-Americans (69%-2%) and Hispanics (39%-27%).
Texas and its 38 electoral college votes have been reliably pocketed by Republicans for decades — the Lone Star State has backed the GOP presidential nominee in every race since 1980,
But Trump’s 7-point lead in the Lyceum poll is a relatively slender advantage. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried the state over President Barack Obama by roughly 16 points. Four years before that, John McCain defeated Obama there by about 12 points.
The Lyceum poll was conducted September 1-11 using phone interviews with 502 likely Texas voters. It has a margin of error of 4.37%.