Maybe they don't know how impressive his economic miracle really has been. You know, the miracle that has set recent record highs for poverty and unemployment. Oh my.
Rick Perry has an under water approval rating in Texas and he's leading Barack Obama by a smaller margin than John McCain won the state by in 2008...but at least he is leading Obama, which is more than he could say the last time we polled the state.
45% of Texas voters approve of the job Perry is doing to 48% who disapprove. Those aren't good numbers but they do represent improvement from a June PPP poll of the state when Perry was at 43/52. The better numbers are attributable to Republicans really rallying around him. He was at 73/21 with them before but now it's 78/14. He continues to be very unpopular with independents though (32/61) and even in a state that still has a lot of conservative Democrats his crossover support is virtually nonexistent with just 13% of voters approving of him across party lines. The numbers with independents are particularly troublesome for Perry- if that's where he is with swing voters where they know him best, can he expect to do well with those folks in key swing states like Ohio, Colorado, and Virginia?
