AUSTIN — Former Vice President Joe Biden has built a five-point lead over President Donald Trump in Texas as unease over Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic mounts, a new Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll has found.

Biden had 46% support to Trump’s 41%. If the general election were held today, the outcome could depend on the 14% of voters who were undecided or named someone else.

Biden’s lead, which comes after he and Trump were tied 43%-43% in The News and UT-Tyler’s April survey, is significant, if barely: The poll, conducted June 29 through July 7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.24 percentage points.

The story behind Biden’s slight bulge is the softening of the Republican incumbent’s support among independents and “weak partisans,” said Kenneth Bryant Jr., a UT-Tyler political scientist who helped design the poll.

“While President Trump has and still enjoys near universal approval from Republicans, and overwhelming disfavor from Democrats, he has lost considerable ground among the folks in the middle, who may ultimately decide who wins Texas in November,” Bryant said.

Up to now, though, the Biden campaign has done little to demonstrate that it will make a major effort before the Nov. 3 general election in Texas. The state hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter carried the state in 1976.

Democratic Senate race

The poll, the fourth of six tracking the 2020 election and current events by The News and the UT-Tyler Center for Public Opinion, also showed some movement, though not enough to be significant, by longtime state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in Tuesday’s runoff for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Purple Heart winner and political neophyte MJ Hegar of Round Rock, who has a big financial edge as well as late-hour help in the form of a TV ad blitz by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and EMILY’s List, leads West 32% to 20% among Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, the poll found.

Since April, when Hegar led West 32% to 16%, he’s narrowed his deficit with Hegar among women and college-educated voters to single digits. For Democratic voters, the poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.27 percentage points.

Neither Democrat has gained much traction since the April survey as their party’s November standard-bearer against three-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn:

Cornyn outpolled Hegar 37% to 26%, with 31% undecided, the latest poll found.

Against West, Cornyn’s plurality was nearly identical: 37% to West’s 25%, with 32% undecided.

Coronavirus questions

The poll, which surveyed 1,909 registered voters, 129 by phone and 1,780 online, found the coronavirus pandemic to be a drag in Texas on the popularity and job ratings of both Trump and second-term GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.

Local elected officials garnered higher approval and levels of confidence, as reflected by support of nearly 4-to-1 for letting cities and counties set their own mask requirements. But while 82% of respondents said they had worn a mask in the preceding seven days, interviews with some suggested that a portion of that was grudging compliance, not necessarily pervasive acceptance of public health experts’ arguments that face coverings reduce transmission.

“I’m wearing a mask only because I have to, not because I want to,” said Texas City funeral home owner Jay Carnes, a Trump supporter who was disappointed that Abbott “caved” on the issue of requiring Texans to wear face coverings while in public.

“These people are just so nasty and mean who see it as a cure-all, they’re just so scared,” he said of mask-law proponents.

“Personally, put me in a room with people that have it,” Carnes said of the virus. “Let me get it, move on, if that means I can move on with my life. The mortality rate is pretty darned low.”

By 66% to 19%, Texans support another stay-at-home order if infections and hospitalizations do not decline. More than one-third, 36%, though, said the threat of the virus had been blown out of proportion. Some 56% agreed with the statement that China is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic, and just 18% disagreed. In April, Texans agreed that China was responsible, 61% to 16%.

And a slight majority now think the pandemic will probably lead to civil unrest: 53% agreed it would; 21% disagreed. In April, only a plurality (45%) of Texans said the pandemic would probably lead to disorder.

As for a vaccine for COVID-19, Texans, by 67% to 16%, said that if one were available they would be likely or very likely to take it. That was down from April, though, when 76% said they would be likely or very likely to take it and just 10% said they would be unlikely or very unlikely to do so.

It’s unknown what percentage of participation would be needed to achieve herd immunity, which makes spread of the virus unlikely. That varies from disease to disease. For another highly infectious disease, measles, it’s estimated that 94% of the population must be immune to block transmission, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he would “settle” for a vaccine that’s 70% to 75% effective. But he noted that this incomplete protection, together with some Americans’ resistance to taking a vaccine, would make it “unlikely” that the U.S. could achieve enough immunity to quell COVID-19.

Poll respondent Becky Maner, 43, of Greenville said she was appalled by some fellow Texans’ “just stupid” opposition to wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

Speaking for her three children, her husband and herself, she said, “As early as we can get the vaccine, we will get it.” People who don’t like wearing a mask should jump at a vaccine as “the next answer,” said Maner, who works for T-Mobile in Frisco and is a Biden supporter.

“I don’t know when we got so wrapped up in conspiracy theories and that people are out to harm us by vaccines,” she said. “I just don’t get it.”

Unease with handling of crisis

Mark Owens, a UT-Tyler political scientist who oversaw the telephone and online survey, said questions added to the June 29-July 7 survey showed growing unease with state and federal leaders’ handling of the public health crisis.

By 70% to 17%, he noted, registered Texas voters agreed that the state should not have reopened restaurants and bars so quickly — as Abbott did, respectively, on May 1 and May 22.

Only 22% agreed that the coronavirus outbreak in Texas was under control, while 63% disagreed.

The drag on Trump’s and Abbott’s approval ratings was striking.

While in April Texans were evenly divided in their appraisals of the president’s overall job performance, in the new poll, 42% approved of the job he was doing, while 50% disapproved. On COVID-19, just 38% of state residents were pleased with Trump’s performance, with a majority (52%) disapproving. In April, 43% approved and 44% disapproved.

Abbott also came down a peg, the poll found, though he started at a much higher one.

As for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, 37% approved and 37% disapproved of his job performance. Throughout his nearly six years in the state’s No. 2 job, the former Houston state senator and radio talk show host has, like Abbott, enjoyed strong support among staunch conservatives. But Patrick has pulled less support than the governor from GOP moderates, independents and even Democrats.

While the two men don’t have to face the voters until 2022, Abbott’s situation is increasingly complicated. Several of the most conservative state lawmakers and GOP activists have attacked him for overreaching and wielding too much power during the pandemic.

Democrats and others, meanwhile, have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism that he stopped listening to medical experts and scientists and surrendered to pressure from Trump and Patrick, who is Trump’s top supporter in the state, for what they say was an overly hasty reopening of the economy.

The hammering from both ends of the political spectrum may be taking a toll.

In April, Abbott, who had declared a state disaster the month before, enjoyed a net 61%-23% overall job approval, and approval by 63% to 22% of the way he was handling the pandemic.

But Abbott, who has kept local officials on a generally tight leash, preferring to make most of the reopening decisions himself, is experiencing erosion of the once-lofty numbers. A resurgence of cases prompted him to close bars on June 26 and issue a statewide mask order on July 2.

His overall job approval slipped by 7 percentage points, to 54% approval and 31% disapproval. On COVID-19, the dip was more dramatic — 15 percentage points, as just 48% now approve of the way he’s handling the virus, compared with 40% who disapprove.

A bare majority of voters still trust Abbott, Owens noted.

But among the 50% of voters who “strongly agree” that Texas should not have reopened bars and restaurants so quickly, he’s lost a lot of people’s confidence, the professor noted.

In April, when asked if they trusted Abbott to keep their community safe and healthy, 66% did. Only 30% dissented.

In the latest poll, though, those with a fair amount or a great deal of confidence in the governor were just 50% of respondents — a 16-point decrease. Some 47% said they had not too much or no confidence that Abbott would keep their towns safe.

Trust in the governor fell across all age groups, educational attainment levels and races.

But the drop among Hispanics was particularly acute: In April, 63% had confidence that he’d keep their community safe, but just 37% do now.

Among Texans making $30,000 to $50,000 a year, there was almost as big a plunge in confidence: from 62% in April to just 41% now.

Distrust of Trump’s ability to keep communities safe during the pandemic has increased, the poll found. In April, 45% of Texans had confidence in the president and 45% did not. Now, 42% trust him while 56% do not.

Some 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds said they had “no confidence” Trump would keep their communities safe during the pandemic, and 70% of Black people felt that way.

Broken down by race, 55% of white people said they had a fair amount or a great deal of trust in Trump, compared with just 27% of Hispanics, 26% of Asian Americans and 14% of Black people.

Only among people making more than $100,000 a year was there a slight majority who said they trust Trump on the pandemic. Among those making under $50,000, only 37% trusted him.

Besides accounts of Americans’ growing isolation and economic woes caused by COVID-19, newspapers and newscasts have been filled with stories about protests of police brutality and racial inequality since the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Asked if the federal government’s response to coronavirus and the protests had caused them to reconsider whom they’d vote for for president in November, 60% of Texans — and 70% of Republicans and independents who lean Republican — said not much or not at all.

But just 55% of independent voters said federal responses weren’t moving them to rethink their White House choice much or at all. And 37% said they were reconsidering to a fair or great degree.

Social distancing

In Texans’ personal lives, the poll found fewer people were taking social distancing precautions than in April.

However, more said they’d worn a mask in the past seven days — 82%, compared with 68% in April.

Whose encouragement to wear masks mattered most? Some 49% of Republicans cited Abbott, compared with just 25% of independents and 24% of Democrats.

Fauci and the White House coronavirus task force were cited by 51% of Democrats. Only 38% of Republicans cited Fauci and the task force as their motivators.

Answers also varied by the population density of respondents’ communities: In metro areas, the most common reason people had worn a mask was that local businesses required it. In rural areas, people tended to cite the encouragement of local leaders. In suburban areas, urging from Dr. Fauci and the White House task force was the most common reason people complied.

Methodology

The Dallas Morning News/UT Tyler Poll reflects a statewide random sample of 1,909 registered voters during the eight days from June 29 through July 7. The mixed-mode sample was made up of 129 registered voters who were surveyed by the Center for Opinion Research over the phone and 1,780 registered voters who were randomly selected from a panel of registered voters that are contacted to take surveys by Dynata. The online and phone surveys were conducted in English and Spanish.

The data was weighted to be representative of the Texas register voter population. Iterative weighting was used to balance sample demographics to the state population parameters, specifically the estimated gender, age, race/ethnicity and education of registered voters in the state using an iterated process known as raking. These parameters were derived from the 2018 Current Population Survey to reflect Texas’s electorate. The use of these weights in statistical analysis ensures that the characteristics of the sample closely reflect the characteristics of registered voters in Texas. This was done separately for the probability phone sample and the online sample, before one weight was generated by standardizing the non-probability online sample with the probability phone sample.

In this poll, the margin of sampling error for 1,909 registered voters in Texas is plus or minus 2.24 percentage points at a 95% confidence interval. The survey’s design asked additional questions of 898 registered voters who indicated they voted in the Democratic primary (margin of error: plus or minus 3.27 percentage points).