On May 29, Texas Public Opinion Research released a U.S. Senate poll. Libertarian nominee Ted Brown, one of three candidates on the ballot, was at 1%. But then poll then asked undecided respondents to reveal who they are leaning toward. The results of that question: 19% Ken Paxton, 17% James Talarico, 13% Brown, 50% said they didn’t lean to anyone at this point. See the results here.
No way in hell Ted Brown gets 13%. I’ll bet everything I own he gets less.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/05/29/usps-mail-in-ballots-security/90317861007/
USPS seeks mail-in voter lists from states after Trump order
TYRANT TRUMP — SNAIL MAIL – ABS BALLOTS
HOW SOON BEFORE ANOTHER SCOTUS E CASE/OPIN ???
Jim: Of course. I’d bet everything I own and go heavily into debt against double digits. Opinion polls this far out from an election are worse than meaningless, particularly regarding minor party candidates. 1.3% will be a lot closer to the mark, and I won’t be the least bit surprised if it’s less than 1%.
said:
If Trump was a tyrant, those who keep calling him one in public should not be doing that (at least, not for very long before being jailed or shot).
See for example the people who were in the streets of Iran to protest against their tyrannical regime. About 30,000 of them were killed for doing that. Proportional to population size, that would be hundreds of thousands of people in the US.
THANK G-D PRESIDENT TRUMP IS NOTHING CLOSE TO BEING A TYRANT.
And everlasting shame on those who keep encouraging more assassination attempts against him by endlessly going on and on about what a “tyrant” he is.
Shame also on those who platform that drek. I’m all for free speech, but that’s crying fire in a crowded theatre.
Forgot to fix it again. Would not should.
7% of voters said they were undecided. Of those 13% said they leaned towards Brown. Multiply the two together and you get 0.91%.
In reality, if a voter would never vote for a Democrat and would never vote for Paxton, they are likely vote for Brown rather than skip the race, particularly if the voting machine is programmed to warn a voter that they had skipped the race.
Because there is a gubernatorial, Congressional, and legislative races, voters are unlikely to skip the election entirely.
Like everything else the nAZi-666 aka AZeri spambot links to, USSR YESTERDAY is fake news.
“In reality, if a voter would never vote for a Democrat and would never vote for Paxton, they are likely vote for Brown rather than skip the race, particularly if the voting machine is programmed to warn a voter that they had skipped the race.”
In reality, if an eligible voter would not vote for either Paxton or a demon rat, they are far more likely to skip that race if they vote at all, and most likely of all to not vote at all.
A huge part of why Paxton and the dummy rodent will get as many votes as they will are their partisan voter turnout machines and ad budgets. Ted Brown, the Lemon Party, and their supporters won’t have anything remotely matching the money and in kind/volunteer resources of the major party campaigns, associated pacs, the major parties themselves etc.
Not by several orders of magnitude with all things added up.
Is Ken Brown a commie like the current LNC?
*Ted Brown
Also in reality , as the election gets closer and closer, voters who don’t like Paxton or the demon rat and won’t skip the midterm or that particular race will gradually get persuaded to vote for one of them anyway, because one of them will win and they will want to hold their nose and vote for whichever one they hate and fear less than the other.
@Ron Who is Ted Brown?
Those are the two reasons why early polls are likely to overestimate minor party and independent candidates support.
The way the BAN article is worded is inaccurate.
On the first question, 47% of likely voters said they are leaning towards Paxton and 44% the demonic rat. 7% said neither and 2% said they would not vote in that race. There were also 1% where it says likely voters, and I don’t know what that means, since 100% of those they asked where defined as likely voters on the first question.
It says that those who did not lean R or D were asked a follow up question. I don’t know whether that included the 2% who said they would skip the race or whatever the 1% is supposed to be, so that would be either 7, 8, 9 or 10% of the first question’s
respondents.
Brown got 13% on the second question, not the first. That puts him at somewhere in the ballpark of 0.91-1.3%, plus or minus some additional margin of error, but let’s just say around 1%. That’s a lot more realistic than 13% of all likely voters.
50% of those asked the second question said they don’t lean towards anyone. That’s somewhere between 3.5 and 5% overall.
I’ve yet to figure out where Richard Winger got 19% and 17% from unless it was incorrectly extrapolated, but maybe there’s something I missed?
@ Dfr scroll up , read article
I never read articles but I do read headlines. The answer to Mr. Robinson’s question is in the headline of this one.
19 and 17 were the results for the people’s champion, Ken Paxton, and the evil sinister commie demon rat Talarico respectively on the second question.
The first question was who folks would vote for if they voted now.
So 47% and 44% there.
On the second question, those same two candidates got an additional 19% and 17% of the remaining 9% (or 7% if the 2% of first question respondents who said they would skip that race were not asked the second question). It was on that second question where Brown got 13% of either the 7% or 9%.
That would put him at about 1% now, but since 91-93% of survey respondents were never given Brown as an option, he might be at let’s say 2-5% right now, which will get continually squeezed towards the two leading candidates or not voting as the election gets closer.
Most of the estimated 2-5% are not Ted Brown or El Pee fans and have no idea who he is. If you told them his name was Jed Lemon or that he’s a Green Party candidate that probably wouldn’t have changed the results by much.
I either misread the BAN article or Richard Winger saw the comments and fixed it.
Re: USSR YESTERDAY propaganda article linked by the AZeri spambot,
Snail mail / absentee voting is heavily fraud ridden in numerous ways and for numerous reasons. It needs to be eliminated. The reason demonic rats don’t like President Trump’s order is that they want to maximize that fraud rather than minimize it.
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=156479
ELB on po abs ballots 1:52 pm above
JR,
“Because there is a gubernatorial, Congressional, and legislative races, voters are unlikely to skip the election entirely.”
Oh, really? What’s the average percentage of registered voters who typically vote in
A) Texas presidential general elections
B) Texas midterm general elections
?
Since an average would require a starting point and there are different ways to calculate averages (mean, median, mode), what were the percentages in the last few such elections of each type?
How does the approximate number of eligible voters who typically don’t vote in Texas compare with what a lolbertarian running for US Senate might typically expect to get there, based on recent results?
How are “likely voters” calculated?
Are there similar statistics readily available for “likely” voters?
Voters who vote in person won’t have their ballot rejected by the
Horse Hitching Post “Service.”
All voters should vote in person.
The horse hitching stop folks don’t guarantee that the horse rider’s saddle bag and what all is in it won’t get lost in transit, much less when it will arrive, if it arrives.
Thus, folks who want to ensure that their vote actually arrives and gets counted ought to vote in person. Those who are willing to take the risk that it may or may not arrive should not complain that it may also get rejected for possible fraud if it does in fact arrive.
The rest of us take a risk that it might be fraudulent if it does arrive and get counted.
And we also have to deal with the inconvenience of having to wait for however long various jurisdictions give slow riders of sick, lame, and exhausted horses to get there for official results.
Since at least some results in some places do come in fairly quickly, that period introduces more time to engage in more various types of vote counting fraud.
None of this would even be an issue under standing count, or even under via voce voting.
Get rid of ballots.
Starting with horse hitching and electronic ones.
Is there a Green or Independent in the race? If not, is it too late for them to qualify?
Stephen Richer at Stato, via “ELB,” via AZeri-666 crAZy nAZi spambot:
“…Previously, local election jurisdictions determined the eligibility of voters, kept lists of mail voters, designed the mail ballot packets, and simply used USPS as a reliable vendor for delivery and return….”
Oh. So they are a reliable vendor? Really? Then why do so many folks so much money with other competing vendors for those categories of mailed items where such competition is legal, even though those competitors typically charge more?
And why isn’t such competition legal for all classes of mailed items?
* folks spend so much money…
@Poll Dancer,
“That would put him at about 1% now, but since 91-93% of survey respondents were never given Brown as an option”
That is not correct. Ted Brown was included on the first question. He received 1% support.
In Texas, Libertarian candidates do better in election day voting than early voting. They also do better in more obscure races. Hispanic-surnamed Libertarians tend to do a bit better.
Voting machines in Texas are programmed to encourage voters not to skip races. This does not mean that no voters will skip a race where they have little or no knowledge or no interest. If the machine says a voter made “No Choice”. Some voters will think, “I know that, I deliberately skipped the race.” But others will think, “I made a mistake. Hmm I’m an ‘independent’ I will vote for the non-D/R.” How many voters are going to call an election clerk over to the voting booth and ask if there is a machine malfunction?
@RAW,
The poll asked Paxton, Talarico, Brown, undecided, would not vote in that race.
1% answered Brown, 7% undecided, and 2% said skip that race. The second question was asked of those who said they were undecided. It was not asked of those who said they would skip the race.
Best wishes to Libertarian Ted Brown for electoral success!
@Q,
“Oh really?” is not a question, dontcha know?
You misunderstood what I was saying about turnout. It has ZERO to do with presidential elections vs. midterms. Turnout will be driven by the gubernatorial race as much as the senatorial race. The senate race will be first on the ballot. It is some effort to skip a race on the voting machines in Texas. It is not like on a paper ballot where you can skim down the ballot.
Even if were a down ballot race and a voter has no idea what the Commissioner of the General Land Office does or who the candidates are they will vote for someone. If a voter attempts to skip a race, the voter will be prompted to confirm that they really meant to skip the race. At the end of voting they will be shown a list of all the candidates and offices, and those they skipped will be shown as “No Choice”.
You asked about “likely to vote” screening. The second question was “Looking ahead to the general election in November, how likely would you say you are to vote in that election?” 94% said very likely, 6% said somewhat likely, and 0% each said not that likely, not likely at all, and not sure. I don’t if they just polled voting enthusiasts, or excluded those who answered with disinterest. The poll used text messages and an online panel. I assume the text message included a link that took the respondent to the polling questions. They may have used the demographics to weigh the results.
Voter lists are public in Texas. So one of the questions that was asked of Republican Runoff voters who indicated a preference for Talorico, “”In your own words, please explain why you are supporting James Talarico and not Ken Paxton?” They did not ask whether the voter had voted in a runoff, but they apparently knew.
That is actually a reasonable polling technique: Take every 100th name and use commercial lists to match to a phone number.
OTOH this has problems identifying likely voters for the general election. In recent years, turnout for the general election is roughly 2.5 to 3 times the turnout for the primaries. For example, in 2022 there were roughly 17M registered voters, 8M voted in the general election, 2M voted in the R primary, 1 M voted in the D primary. If we assume that every primary voter returned for the general election; then there were 5M non-primary voters who showed up in November among the total 14M non-primary voters. How do you figure out which of these voters are “likely” to vote when 65% will not vote.
It is not plausible to me that 91% of non-primary voters have already formed an opinion about an election six months away.
@QE2,
In Texas, potential independent candidates have to register with the state in December. Then they have to wait until after the primaries are resolved to begin collecting signatures. Because the Republican nomination was not resolved until the runoff on May 26, signatures could not be collected until May 27, and there are 30 days to collect over 81,000 valid signatures. Given typical validity rates, a candidate would likely need 120,000 to 150,000 raw signatures. Voters who voted in either party primary or runoff are not eligible to sign. Theoretically, this only eliminates 4 million of 17 million registered voters. But 8 million of those won’t vote in November and aren’t really that invested in politics. Maybe five million of those non-primary voters will vote in November.
This video explains the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1umDm44yx4
Only two candidates have successfully petitioned for statewide office (since 1906).
Five candidates filed as independent candidates in December 2025. I can only find campaign websites for two of them, and only one seems to be aware of the petition requirement.
So, greens are currently not a recognized party there, I take it? I know that they have been, but not the latest on that.
The Green Party is recognized in Texas, at least through 2034. To be nominated by a convention-nominating party, a candidate has to pay a filing fee, effectively a poll tax. The Green Party has concentrated their effort in select offices, having nominees for three statewide offices: Comptroller, Lieutenant Governor, and Ag Commissioner, five congressional districts, and three state legislative seats.
The poll did include an independent candidate for governor, Jenn Mack Raphoon. She must secure 81,000+ signatures. Since both Democrat and Republican nominations for governor were completed at the March Primary she has had almost three months to secure signatures along with most of another month. In the poll she received 1% support.
Texas also permits write-in candidates. Texas has a unique system for write-in candidates. Candidates must play a filing fee by late August. The fee is the same as if they were a candidate in a partisan primary. Texas only places a write-in space on ballots in races where there is a write-in candidate. In addition, they post the names of write-in candidates in every voting booth, as well in the packet for by-mail ballots. Write-in candidates are the same as other candidates in that they are screened for eligibility, and must file with the Texas Ethics Commission, the state’s campaign finance reporting agency (Texas does not have campaign contribution limits, but does have campaign reporting requirements, even for very small contributions).
For President/Vice President, there is no fee for write-in candidates, but they must file a complete slate of elector candidates who must be eligible for the office (i.e. Texas citizens).
So Ted Brown is at about 1% and likely to go down, not up.