As early voting kicks off in Texas this week, Rice University experts are available to discuss a number of 2024 election topics.
Mark Jones, a professor of political science, can discuss Texas’ legislative and congressional races and the presidential election. He said that approximately 2 of 3 Texas voters are expected to cast their ballots early this year, most via in-person early voting. He said Texas’ marquee race is the showdown in the U.S. Senate — Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz holds a narrow lead in the polls over his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
“National handicappers view Cruz as the most vulnerable Republican in a GOP-held Senate race this cycle, and a Cruz victory would very likely lock in a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate in 2025, while an Allred victory would give the Democratic Party hope of retaining control of the U.S. Senate,” Jones said.
When it comes to the presidential race, Jones said there is little doubt that Donald Trump will defeat Kamala Harris in Texas.
“The only doubts revolve around his margin of victory, which is projected to range between 4 and 7 percentage points,” Jones said.
Because of gerrymandering during the 2021 legislative redistricting process, he noted that Texas has only about a dozen truly competitive U.S. House, Texas Senate and Texas House races.
“Most of these competitive races are in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley where growing Latino support for Republican candidates has resulted in competitive contests across the region,” Jones said. “There is no doubt that Republicans will continue to retain majorities in the Texas Senate and in the Texas House in 2025 with few districts in play.”
Jones also serves as a fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. His expertise and scholarly work has been widely cited by local, state and national media as well as numerous political campaigns. For more information on Jones, visit https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/mark-p-jones.
Robert Stein, the Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science, can discuss a range of election topics from political advertising to voting laws to how weather may impact the election. He can also discuss the presidential race, the electoral college and what it will take for either candidate to win.
“We may not know the outcome of the presidential race anytime close to election night,” Stein said. “Everything I see in [Trump’s] campaign strategy is that the election doesn’t end on Election Day for him. One of the things that I’ve seen are all the lawsuits he’s filing already, targeting anything that might threaten him and particularly in the three battleground states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.”
Stein added that if Harris loses Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan, Trump will likely win the overall election. Stein said that a Harris overall win might be achievable without one of those three if she can win Georgia or North Carolina, but he said he “doesn’t think those are in reach.”
Stein is an expert on voting and elections. His expertise and scholarly work has been widely cited by local, state and national media.
Daniel Potter, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research’s Houston Population Research Center, can discuss a new election report released by the institute this week. Based on surveys of eligible voters in Harris County, the report reveals that residents plan to vote in November, but many fear political unrest after Election Day.
“Asking about who intends to vote is a reliable way to anticipate who will participate, and it’s why we wanted to conduct this survey,” Potter said.
Survey findings also showed that Hispanic (51%), young adult (48%) and independent voters (47%) are least likely to say they are going to cast a ballot.
“It’s striking that the groups that we perennially hear about being pivotal in elections — Hispanics, independents and young people — were the least likely to say they were going to vote,” Potter said. “There is such huge untapped potential there despite the best efforts of many organizations to find and motivate those voters to the polls.”
The Kinder Institute report is online here.
To schedule an interview with Jones, Stein or Potter, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.