The target of candidates to his right for months, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is likely to avoid a runoff, two recent polls show.
Sixty percent of voters who planned to participate in the Republican primary said they would vote for the incumbent for a third term, according to two polls conducted earlier this month.
Primary elections in Texas move to a runoff if no candidate receives at least 50.1% of the vote.
In The Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll, conducted Feb. 8-15, 60% of respondents said they planned to vote for Abbott, while 7% said they would vote for Allen West. Fifteen percent responded, "don't know."
Sixty percent also selected Abbott in a Texas Tribune/University of Texas poll.
West is a former chair of the Texas GOP and a former Congressman from Florida. Former Texas state Sen. Don Huffines received 3% of responses in the poll.
Democrat Beto O'Rourke appears likely to secure the nomination without the threat of a runoff. Sixty-eight percent of people who planned to vote in the Democratic primary said they would vote for the former Congressman from El Paso, according to the DMN/UT-Tyler poll.
No other Democrat received more than 4%.
O'Rourke represented Texas' 16th Congressional District for three terms before he ran against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in 2018. O'Rourke lost the Senate race by 2.6% and then mounted a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out of the race.
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