An independent poll of the Harris County judge race finally exists. It puts the margin at 7 points, and says nearly half of voters do not know either candidate.

An independent poll of the Harris County judge race finally exists. The University of Houston Hobby School puts Letitia Plummer at 47 percent and Orlando Sanchez at 40 percent, and reports that nearly half of the voters surveyed do not know enough about either candidate to have an opinion.

Why it matters

On September 21 this desk wrote that the only poll of this race was a campaign’s own, that it showed a 16 point lead, and that no independent survey had been released. One has now, and the margin is less than half that. Three weeks out, the larger finding is not the margin. It is that the office with the county’s budget authority is being decided by an electorate that largely cannot identify either person running for it.

By the numbers

All figures below are from The Texan’s reading of the Hobby School report unless noted.

47 percent Plummer, 40 percent Sanchez, 13 percent unsure.
7 points, the margin. Houston Public Media’s headline on the same report also puts it at 7.
Nearly half of respondents did not know enough about either candidate to have an opinion.
Among independents, 39 percent Plummer and 38 percent Sanchez, with 23 percent unsure.
2,750 likely Harris County voters, margin of error 1.87 percentage points. Precinct subsamples are 624 in Precinct 2 and 702 in Precinct 4.
71 percent say Harris County is going in the wrong direction. The comparable figures were 67 percent for the country and 63 percent for Texas.
72 percent disapprove of the commissioners’ vote on the property tax rate.
47 percent name crime and public safety as a top issue, 36 percent property taxes, 26 percent voting rights.
63 percent view County Judge Lina Hidalgo unfavorably, the least popular county official in the survey.
In the down-ballot races, Adrian Garcia leads Richard Vega by 12 in Precinct 2 and Lesley Briones leads Steve Radack by 8 in Precinct 4.

The other side

The case for not reading much into the 7 points is strong, and it runs against both campaigns.

A margin of error of 1.87 points is a statement about sampling. It is not a statement about a contest in which half the electorate cannot name either candidate. With 13 percent unsure on top of that awareness gap, the available movement is far larger than the gap between the two. Independents are inside one point of each other, which is the number to watch rather than the topline.

Harris County’s recent partisan history cuts the same way. The Texan’s own article notes that Colin Allred carried Harris County by about 11 points in 2024 while losing statewide by 8.5. A Democratic lead here is the baseline, not the news. The news is that this one is 7 and not 11, on a day when 71 percent of the same sample said the county is going the wrong way and 72 percent disapproved of its tax vote. Whichever campaign that favors, it means a large number of people who dislike how the county is run have not settled on a replacement.

One more caution. The coverage this desk could read does not give the survey’s field dates or mode, so there is no way to say whether it was taken before or after the registration backlog news, the tax rate adoption, or the plate reader fight.

What to watch

Whether the Hobby School publishes the field dates, survey mode and question wording.
Whether either campaign releases a poll with a different margin, and whether it says who paid for it.
Thursday, October 15, the last regular Commissioners Court meeting before the election, with the plate reader item and the Harvey money item both on it.
November 3.

Bottom line

Credit where it is due: The Texan printed the sample size, the margin of error and the awareness caveat in the same story as the topline, which most poll coverage does not do. Read with those numbers attached, the poll says less about who wins than about how little either candidate has registered. A 7 point lead with half the electorate unfamiliar is a soft number, and the 71 percent wrong-direction figure sitting beside it is the harder one.

Sources

Editorial