Texas is a historically Republican state when it comes to presidential elections, but new poll data suggests that even in Texas, Donald Trump may not have the same support previous GOP nominees had.

Public Policy Polling found in a survey of 944 likely voters August 12- 14 that among Texas voters, Donald Trump leads 44% to Hilary Clinton’s 38%, a margin of just 6%. In 2012 Mitt Romney won in Texas by 16 percentage points.  John McCain won in Texas by 12 points in  2008.

The PPP poll also indicates that while Clinton has a low favorability rating with Texans, Trump isn’t doing much better.

There are other recent polls which suggest slightly different numbers,  but overall Sondra Ziegler believes the polls reflect growing numbers of conflicted Texas voters like herself who want to vote Republican but still see problems with Trump.

Ziegler is a lifelong Republican and was a delegate at the  2016 Republican National Convention where she said she saw a troubling lack of party unity.

“I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster ride, you know when I was elected delegate I fully expected to be able to vote for Donald Trump going into he national convention. I figured he would bring our party together and do what was needed to unify, he didn’t do that at all,” Ziegler said.

She admits that she did like some of Trump’s recent statements on immigration and taking a stand against ISIS. 

“But of course that was following a couple weeks of non-stop ridiculous statements from Donald Trump and I’m still undecided,” Ziegler said.  She believes that many others feel similarly.

“I could see a lot of my friends and neighbors answering a pollster and saying I’m not sure who I’m gonna vote for,” she said. 

To Joel Sievert, Instructor of Political Science at Texas Tech University,  it’s not surprising to think that at growing number of Texas voters are unsure about Trump. 

“There’s a few things to consider, the first is that there’s some indication– even going into this election– that Texas was changing somewhat, there  are demographic changes going on in Texas, especially in the metropolitan areas,” Sievert said. Those demographic changes, he explained, could allow Democratic political candidates to gain more of a foothold in the Lone Star state.

But Sievert believes Trump’s narrow margin over Clinton in the polls of Texas voters has more to do with Trump as a candidate than changes in the Texas population.

He added that the poll numbers could change even more as voters really tune into the election in the coming months.

“Both [Clinton and Trump] have such low favorability ratings, you cant let people get complacent, ” Sievert said. He explained that for political parties to pull ahead come November, they will need to mobilize voters, especially for the down ballot races.

Ziegler is worried that the narrow margin in the polls could soon spell out fewer Republican victories in down-ticket races

“I don’t have any expectation at all that Donald Trump is not going to win Texas,” Ziegler said. “But that margin definitely is troubling, I do think it probably right now reflects a lot of people currently who are reluctant to vote for Donald Trump who in the end will end up pulling that lever or in Texas pushing that button for Donald Trump.”

Regardless of who is elected president, Ziegler suspects the issues brought up in this election will push the  Republican party as a whole to reassess and redefine what they stand for.
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