The charts in this post are from the latest University of Texas / Texas Tribune Poll -- done between October 10th and 19th of a random sample of 866 likely Texas voters, and has a margin of error of about 3.33 points.As the chart above shows, only about 32% of Texans think the teabaggers have too much influence over the Texas Republican Party, while about 48% think the influence is about right or too little -- with 20% saying the influence is about right and 28% saying the influence is too little (which is amazing since the teabaggers have been in complete control of the state party for years now).
The two charts below also demonstrate this influence. As the top chart shows, about 53% of Texans say they would prefer to vote for a Republican in their congressional district. But as the bottom chart shows, if the teabaggers had a party of their own about 25% would vote for it while only 22% would vote Republican (and the other 6% would have a hard time choosing between the two). The support for Democrats would remain the same (with only an insignificant 1% going into the unsure column).
It is easy to see from these numbers why all the Republican candidates in Texas pander to extremist elements. They know their party is controlled by the teabagger extremists -- and they also know that enough Texas Independents have been conned into believing teabagger politics is sensible and patriotic to give GOP extremists a natural advantage at the polls. Being a right-wing extremist might hurt a political candidate in many states -- but in Texas it is an advantage.
Democrats don't just need to increase their numbers in Texas -- but also need to do a much better job of showing Independents how the extremist positions of teabaggers are hurting the state and the nation.
------------------------------------------------This dominating strength of teabaggers in the Texas Republican Party also helps to explain the favorite 2016 presidential candidate choices of Texas Republicans. The chart below shows that (and was determined by the same poll's query of 560 Texas Republicans, with a margin of error of 4.14 points). Note that the most extremist candidates do the best among Texas Republicans.
