Hillary Clinton trails Donald Trump by just three percentage points in Texas, a state where no Democrat has won a presidential race since 1976.
A new poll out Thursday shows Trump leading in the reliably red state with 45 percent of support from likely voters, compared to Clinton’s 42 percent.
“It’s a surprise, I think, to anyone who is being honest about what we’re seeing here,” said Jim Henson, Director of the Texas Politics Project out of the University of Texas at Austin.
Four months ago, a similar poll had Trump up by 8 percentage points in Texas.
That June poll showed the majority of Texas voters didn’t like either of the two major candidates. Now, less than two weeks from Election Day, the new numbers suggest Texas Democrats have had an easier time embracing their party’s candidate than the Republicans with Trump.
“Democrats have largely come home and they’ve come home in a very positive way towards Clinton;There is still a lot of lingering resistance to Donald Trump,” Henson said.
Party loyalty will, to a large extent, overcome that resistance, Henson said, “but I think it’s more of a stretch right now for Republicans to support Donald Trump than it is for Democrats to support Hillary Clinton.
UT-Austin and the Texas Tribune, a non-profit news publication, conducted the poll between Oct. 14 and Oct. 23, the day before early voting started in the state.
The internet survey of 1,200 registered voters asked what kind of president people thought their candidate would make, possible responses ranged from “great” to “terrible.”
Henson said, “The ‘very good’ and ‘great’ responses among Democrats are double figures higher than they are among Republicans.”
Out of the Republicans polled, 23 percent said Trump would be a great president, 35 percent said he would be good and 20 percent said he would be average.
Among Democratic voters, 39 percent said Clinton would be great, 38 percent said she would be good and 17 percent saying she would be an average president. Among those same voters, 86 percent said Trump would be a terrible president.
Not to be outdone by the Democrats, 86 percent of Trump supporters said Clinton would be a terrible president.
While it’s unlikely Clinton will win Texas, Henson said the three-point separation is significant. Just four years ago the Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney, won Texas by more than 15 points.
“It’s a big shift,” Henson said, “Texas is being moved into the lean Republican rather than the strong Republican at the presidential level.”
Henson said the results that surprised him the most came from Republican women in Texas who are, in large numbers, sticking with Trump.
“He’s actually running slightly stronger in this poll among Republican women than he is with Republican men, which is really something,” Henson said.
In comparison to 2012, Henson said Trump is still “under-performing with women by double digits” nationwide.
Trump and Clinton tied in their support among women with 45 percent each, while Trump led with men, 13 percentage points ahead of Clinton.
The poll found support for the two major candidates in Texas is largely divided by racial and ethnic lines.
Among white voters, Trump is ahead with support from 57 percent of likely voters to Clinton’s 28 percent, but Clinton leads 95 percent to 4 percent among black voters and 56 percent to 33 percent among Hispanic voters.
Henson predicts Trump will take Texas with a single-digit win on Election Day.
As for what happens to the traditionally red state after that, Henson said the big question will be how durable the Democratic shift is.
That judgment can’t be made until the state sees the actual outcome on Election Day, Henson said, “and then see how partisans in the state respond in the aftermath of the election come early 2017.”