Josh Goodman is a former staff writer for GOVERNING..
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2.4 Million Texas Voters Favor Secession
You've probably heard by now that Texas Gov. Rick Perry made some controversial remarks about secession on Tax Day. Here's what he said, as reported by the Associated Press: "There's a lot of
different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's
absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to
thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might
come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty
independent lot to boot."
Rasmussen Reports swiftly polled the matter and found that 75% of Texas voters oppose secession. But, I'm burying the lede. The real news is that 18% of Texas voters favor secession (the remaining 7% are undecided).
How much is 18%? Turnout guru Michael McDonald reports that Texas had 13,575,062 registered voters in November. Eighteen percent of that number is 2,443,511. Maybe some of the poll respondents just thought it was funny to say they favored secession, but clearly there are hundreds of thousands of secession supporters in Texas. Seven percent, by the way, translates into another 950,254 being undecided.
I still don't think that Perry did himself any political favors with this incident. Nonetheless, ahead of his primary with Kay Bailey Hutchison, he probably endeared himself to a relatively small segment of the electorate.
Twitter: @governing
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