Posted on 02/09/2010 10:25:13 AM PST by mdittmar
Tea party-backed candidate Debra Medina is closing on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas’s Republican gubernatorial primary, increasing the odds the race led by Gov. Rick Perry will be thrown into a runoff.
According to a by Public Policy Polling, Medina, a nurse who’s now a businesswoman, had the support of 24 percent of likely Republican primary voters, trailing the three-term senator by only 4 percentage points. Perry, who’s leading Hutchison by double-digits in several polls, got 39 percent in the latest survey.
If none of the candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the March 2 primary, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff a week later.
The poll of 423 likely Republican voters found Medina particularly strong among those angry at Washington. Among the third of voters in the poll who said they disapproved of Washington, Medina topped Perry, 37 percent to 32 percent.
Both Perry and Hutchison had approval ratings of at least 50 percent in the poll, making Medina’s surge even more surprising.
“The big question for Debra Medina is whether there’re enough unhappy voters out there for her to get into a runoff with Rick Perry,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. “That would rank up there with the results of the Massachusetts Senate election as an early shocker in the 2010 political season.”
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points
Maybe I WILL vote for her...
I will never forgive Kay Bailey Hutchison for piling on during the Tailhook witch hunt, siding with the radical femiNazis. At the time, I voted in Texas, and I expressed my extreme displeasure to her. Funny, she never answered my letter.
If she can get into a runoff vs Perry..all bets are off!
Dhr is getting our family protest votes - I hope that she beats both of them. The TX gove has very little power - except for a big microphone and maybe she can get a few peopel in poltics to see what can happen if you make the people angry. Perry has kept gov. small, but his vaccine deal and the TransTX hiway looked a lot like a payoff.
I would support her over Kay Bailey, but not over Rick, at this point. I still have the fear that she is going to be a spoiler. I certainly like what she has to say, but she cannot do some of the things she wants to do, so for now, I’ll stick with Rick. Texas isn’t doing bad compared to a lot of other states, and although we have things that could be fixed, I don’t see a mass exodus.
One of my biggest issues is illegal immigration. And Medina isn’t going to stop it any more than Perry has. It will take either cooperation from other border states, or help from the Feds, and I don’t see that a Texas governor getting that with Zero’s administration.
This seems staggering in its implications...looking at the trendline, how she’s come from virtually nowheres, it seems obvious that she’s sure to finish 2nd..I know very little about local Texas politics...and always thought that Perry was an OK guy..IIRC his first big national exposure was when he stepped up during Katrina and said that Texas would take a lot of the folks from NO....what led her to run in the first place?
GO DEBRA GO
Oh this would be awesome. Medina in 2nd place!? That would be awesome
wow....can’t say this was expected....it would be an amazing story if Medina and Perry make the runoff....
I’m thinking I will go Medina. KBH is a *hell no* for me and Perry really disappointed in one of the debates.
He was against a bill he signed into law (Texas advance directives act) and didn’t know he was the one that signed it into law.
I’m still in question on who is right on the Texas advance directives act. Everything I’m finding says Bush signed that into law in 1999.(one quickie link)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Directives_Act
I think it’s sad if a Gov doesn’t know if a law is something he signed. Whether he did or not, no difference...it’s the not knowing what you sign that bothers me.
If he didn’t sign it, he should have been able to defend himself. I’m sick of having folks with the power of law not reading/knowing the stuff they sign!
Also, Perry signed the Hate Crimes bill into law. UGH!
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/10595/
Can Medina beat the Dems? That’s my concern.
If she can beat Perry, I think she can beat the Dems. I don’t think she will beat Perry...but I hope it sends Perry a message.
The latest poll from Rasmussen showed that all 3 Repubs can beat Bill White, including Medina. Perry 48-39% - Kay 49-36% - Medina 41-38%
It’s not just that but she also has no experience whatsoever. She hasn’t proven that she can manage her way out of a paper bag, let alone the entire state of Texas. It’s a mistake when conservatives trade away depth and a resume for speeches and talking points.
The bigger picture here is that liberals want Perry and Hutchison to spend more money in a run-off. That’s why they’ve been giving Medina all this publicity. They figure the more money these two have to spend now, the less they’ll have on hand for the general election in November.
If Perry is that far under 50% in his own party, it means he’ll be vulnerable in the general. I don’t want some Pali as governor, nor a ‘Rat mayor.
did Palin endorse Perry? If so , why not Medina?
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