Or, the polling is skewed.
I cannot see anyone voting for Abbott who then votes for O’****head
We’ll see how it goes the final poll. It’s possible for one person to be more likable than the other in general, and it is reflected in the polls. That gap between +8 and +20 will probably tighten in the final analysis. People will tell pollsters different things for different reasons - particularly when so much ‘peer pressure’/media spotlight is on one particular race. We learned there is a big sleeper contingent who didn’t tell pollsters the truth the last cycle. No other way to explain why HRC had double-digit polling leads but lost overall. People are no longer willing to openly say what they support and now add violence to the mix. When you have 20% of the people and 90% of the media going ape.... er apoplectic at the sound of a name, or if they say you are a racist and sexist if you support so and so, you are less inclined to admit it openly.
I’ve seen footage of people ripping out Cruz yard signs and cursing and throwing them in the street. I’ve read O’Rourke has way more signs up, yet Cruz still has a commanding lead. This tells us that the people on the left don’t fear any backlash from the right for putting up yard signs while those on the right have some reservations about what may happen from crazies on the left. When passions are visceral and palpable some people feel its prudent to keep their opinions to themselves. O’Rourke vs Cruz is one of those hot-issues.
That’s not what is happening. It’s the undervote. Executive positions get more votes than legislative positions. The same thing happens with Senate elections in Presidential election years. The Executive position (President, and/or Governor) get the most total votes; and the drop-off to the legislative (Senate, and then moreso, the House races in total in a given state for all districts (not district by district; those can go 75-25 for one candidate or another within a district, or even go uncontested (99+ for the winner versus a handful of write-ins) fall off even more); and the margins shrink too; as the party with the leading vote totals at the top of the ticket shrink at a faster rate down the ticket.
This pattern usually holds even when a candidate on the ‘undercard’ is more popular personally than the winning candidate of the same party at the executive level.