A story goes with this poll. The poll was sent to me by a Perry operative. There have been rumblings about a poll for an Indian tribe in Oklahoma about gambling issues. The polling firm is California-based Fairbank, Maslin, which has been around for a long time. It does polling for Republicans and for Democrats. One of the principals, Paul Maslin, has done polling for several Texas Democrats, including Bill White. One question was about the White-Perry horse race. The result is the worst poll for White that has come out. I will publish all of the crosstabs. I asked a Democratic operative what he thought of the poll. The response was that the poll deliberately oversampled Republicans to make things look worse for gambling. The client appears to be the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma, which, of course, does not want to see gambling come to Texas. The polling was carried out from August 25-29, when several other polls were in the field, and it is an outlier–that is, worse for White–among these polls. I received an e-mail from one of the firm’s principals, who checked with his client, and was cleared to send me this statement about the charge of oversampling: “As regards the sample for the survey, there was no “oversampling” to increase political party identifiers for any party. The random sample was obtained from a long-experienced Texas-oriented sample vender who also provided data regarding the proportions for men and women, age groupings and geographic regions. From this data we set loose targets so that the random selection would take place within these strata. This procedure is called stratified random sampling, and it is utilized by numerous pollsters to make data collection more time efficient and ultimately more accurate.” General Election Ballot Definitely Perry 34% Probably Perry 15% Definitely White 26% Probably White 11% Perry 49% White 37% Other 4% Don’t Know 8% Geography (cities) Dallas/Fort Worth: Perry 50%, White 38% Houston: Perry 50%, White 37% San Antonio: Perry 45%, White 41% Austin: Perry 37%, White 49% Tyler/Upper East Texas: Perry 64%, White 19% Beaumont/Port Arthur: Perry 54%, White 34% Waco/Temple/Lawton: Perry 52%, White 29% [I don’t know what Lawton is doing in here; it’s in Oklahoma] Geography (regions) North Central: Perry 49%, White 37% Upper Gulf: Perry 49%, White 38% South: Perry 50%, White 36% Central: Perry 40%, White 44% East: Perry 58%, White 40% Panhandle: Perry 63%, White 25% West: Perry 42%, White 29% West Central: Perry 50%, White 30% Key Counties Harris: Perry 47%, White 41% Dallas: Perry 45%, White 38% Bexar: Perry 43%, White 43% Tarrant: Perry 48%, White 43% Tranis: Perry 24%, White 63% Party Self-ID Strong Democrat: Perry 3%, White 89% Democrat: 6%, White 83% Strong Republican: Perry 87%, White 8% Republican: Perry 78%, White 12% Independent: Perry 35%, White 40% Gender Democrat M: Perry 3%, White 86% Democrat F: Perry 7%, White 82% Republican M: Perry 78%, White 12% Republican F: Perry 77%, White 13% Independent M: Perry 37%, White 39% Independent F: Perry 33%, White 42% Age Democrat M 18-49: Perry 4%, White 72% Democrat M 50+: Perry 3%, White 91% Democratic F 18-49: Perry 6%, White 72% Democratic F 50+: Perry 8%, White 80% Republican M 18-49: Perry 74%, White 12% Republican M 50+: Perry 80%, White 11% Republican F 18-49: Perry 78%, White 11% Republican F 50+ Perry 77%, White 14% Independent M 18-49: Perry 26%, White 46% Independent M 50+: Perry 40%, White 36% Ideology Very conservative: Perry 77%, White 13% Somewhat conservative: Perry 59%, White 27% Somewhat liberal: Perry 9%, White 80% Very liberal: Perry 2%, White 79% Conservative (all): Perry 68%, White 20% Moderate (all): Perry 22%, WHite 63% Liberal (all): Perry 5%, White 80% Gender (all) Men: Perry 52%, White 33% Women Perry 47%, White 39% Education (all) High school or less: Perry 46%, White 37% Some college: Perry 53%, White 35% College graduate: Perry 54%, White 33% Post-graduate: Perry 40%, White 45% Non-college: Perry 50%, White 36% College+: Perry 49%, White 37% Ethnicity White: Perry 55%, White 32% Latino: Perry 33%, White 56% African-American: Perry 14%, White 69% Religious Preference Protestant: Perry 54%, White 33% Catholic: Perry 46%, White 41% Jewish/Muslim/other (this is one category?): Perry 24%, White 53% Not Affiliated: Perry 33%, White 46% Protestant by Denomination Baptist: Perry 50%, White 33% Southern Baptist: Perry 60%, White 22% Methodist: Perry 52%, White 39% Lutheran: Perry 55%, White 36% Prebyterian: Perry 47%, White 49% Episcpalian: Perry 40%, White 53% Evangelical/Non-Evangelical/Church Attendance Evangelical: Yes: Perry 63%, White 26% No: Perry 51%, White 37% Protestant Evangelical/Church Attendance Regular: Perry 64%, White 24% Occasional: Perry 54%, White 33% Catholic/Church Attendance Regular: Perry 42%, White 44% Occasional: Perry 57%, White 33% * * * * If this poll is accurate, then White has nowhere to go in the race for governor. The Houston numbers alone (Perry 50, White 37) amount to a death sentence.