September 20, 2010 at 9:34 AM
POLL: Porter leads Railroad Commission race by 15 points

David Porter, the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, is sitting on a comfortable 15-point lead in the race for the Texas Railroad Commission.

In a statewide survey of 1,001 likely voters, Porter tops the Democrat 37%-22% with 36% undecided.  The Libertarian and Green candidates came in at 3% and 2% respectively.

Porter’s lead in the race has grown.  In May of this year, a UT/Texas Tribune poll had Porter up 12 points.

In a down ballot race, the number of undecided voters is not surprising.  Even with a significant number of undecided voters in this race, the Democrat would need to find a way to attract over 77% of those undecided voters to come close to victory.  In this political climate however, Republicans are likely to see a majority of undecideds break their way.

The Democrats had pegged this race their best hope of winning a statewide race, but those hopes are quickly fading.  On his last campaign finance report, the Democrat candidate had less than $18,000 cash on hand.