AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- With only a couple of days before early voting begins on Monday, the latest edition of the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll shows a widening race between incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.
Among likely voters, Abbott leads O'Rourke 54-43% in the latest poll. According to the previous edition of the UT poll in early September, Abbott held a 5-point advantage among registered voters.
Among Republicans, more than half say immigration and border security are at the top of their list of important issues, while Democrats are split amongst several issues, including abortion and gun violence.
The poll surveyed 1,200 self-declared registered voters between October 7-17. "Likely voters" in the poll are defined as someone who has voted in every election in the last 2-3 years, or a respondent who rated their likelihood to vote in the upcoming election as a 9 or 10. This provided a pool of 883 likely voters, with a margin of error of roughly 3.3 percent.
In the other statewide races, Republican incumbents also continued to hold and expand on leads from previous polls. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leads Mike Collier 51-36%, while Attorney General Ken Paxton leads challenger Rochelle Garza 51-37%. In the Comptroller's race, incumbent Glenn Hegar leads challenger Janet Dudding 47-35%; Sid Miller leads Susan Hayes 51-39% in the Agriculture Commissioner's race; and State Sen. Dawn Buckingham leads challenger Jay Kelberg 47-36% in the Land Commissioner's race.
Early voting for the November 8 election begins on Monday, and runs through Nov. 4.