KHOU poll is more bad news for Hall

Annise Parker's challenger can only hope that his supporters have been seriously undersampled.

Annise Parker seems headed for a runoff in her campaign to keep her job, but she commands more than twice as many supporters as her leading challenger in a newly released poll commissioned by KHOU 11 News and KUHF – Houston Public Radio.

Still, just six weeks before Election Day, roughly half of all surveyed voters either didn’t know or wouldn’t say how they’re going to vote.

Parker leads the pack of candidates at 34 percent, with former city attorney Ben Hall at 14 percent. About 48 percent of voters are classified as undecided, indicating the incumbent mayor will have to fight to keep the post to which she was narrowly re-elected two years ago.

“I don’t see the mayor losing this race,” said Bob Stein, the KHOU political analyst who conducted the survey. “I’m not certain she’ll win it in the general election, like she did in 2011. But the mayor, who tends to get high marks as a mayor, simply doesn’t get what I’d call great public support as a candidate.”

Stein has it right.  It's possible that Hall can shore himself up a little in the next seven weeks, but only enough to force the mayor into a runoff.  More Stein...

“(Hall) expects to bring out a large number of African-American voters and win 80, 90 percent of that. Doesn’t seem to be working. Turnout may be a little bit higher among African-American voters, but he’s only winning 29 percent of the African-American vote, to the mayor’s 24 percent.”

Meanwhile, Parker garners 27 percent of Anglo Republican voters’ support compared to Hall’s 11 percent.

The biggest surprise in this polling is that the mayor is getting the Republican votes, and she isn't losing the black votes by enough to make a difference.  Actually it's not that surprising; Hall is just a terrible candidate with an even worse campaign.  And  'delusional' isn't helping.

"These numbers show what we hear every day: Ms. Parker's tenure has been repudiated by the people of Houston and she will not be re-elected as the next mayor," (Hall campaign spokesperson Julie Smekalina) said. "As Houstonians are beginning to see the vision Ben Hall has set forth, they are rallying behind his ideas for the city's future. The grass-roots momentum that we see supporting Ben's candidacy is growing and will secure his election as mayor."

You have to be on LSD to see that.   I'll go out on a very thin limb and say that a runoff is still possible.  But with numbers like these for the campaign operatives to spin, it's growing unlikely for Ben Hall.

If you're one of that 48% who haven't decided whom to vote for, go out to one of the forums on this schedule and see what the candidates have to say.

Mike Morris at the HouChron, KUHF (which conducted the poll with the TV station), Dos Centavos and Texpatriate also weigh in.