ustxtxb_obs_1973_09_07_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

Polling … rise in Doggett’s support. During the latter part of June, we found a serious erosion of Cavness’ support and some slippage among Angly’s. Two consecutive samples showed that Doggett had risen to close to 20 percent, Cavness had fallen to 15 percent and Angly had slipped to around 23 percent. By this point, nearly 40 percent . were undecided. It was now clear that our initial assessment of Doggett’s chances were much too pessimistic. He had put together a formidable campaign organization which, with the help of experienced precinct workers and an effective media campaign by the firm of Gurasich, Spence, Darilek & McClure, was having a telling effect. AROUND THE FIRST of July, we began polling on issues. We found that constitutional revision, an issue frequently used by Angly, was the least important to voters among the ten analyzed. The issue which most concerned the voters of Travis County was the energy crisis. We were disappointed to find little concern for legislative ethics, at least in the abstract \(ethics seemed to be an issue which had to Homeowners and even many renters were very concerned about unplanned growth which threatened their neighborhoods. \(It would appear that the issue of land-use planning cleaves across the entire political spectrum, with comprehensive planning being favored by Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals With concern over issues not unfavorable, the task for the Doggett campaign was to wean Angly’s traditional moderate and liberal support. Grumblings were heard around Austin that many liberals would not support Lloyd because he could not win and because many felt that Maurice Angly had been an effective legislator. Angly’s effectiveness, however, had to be primarily limited to his opposition to Gus Mutscher and membership in the Dirty 30. He had virtually no record of legislative achievement. \(Later polls showed the public wanted more than effective By the time of the last pre-runoff poll, 5 days before the July 17 election, I was almost convinced that Doggett could win without a runoff. The polls now suggested that Angly’s supporters were not highly motivated, that Doggett’s were very highly motivated, and that Cavness’ long slide to oblivion continued. Angly’s motivational problems were consistent with the well-known fact that Republicans have a history of low participation in Central Texas politics. This final poll showed Doggett with nearly 30 percent of the vote, Angly down to around 21 percent, and Cavness at about 18 percent. Allocation of the undecideds by standard procedures gave Doggett 41 percent. Because it is difficult to poll minority groups and students by telephone, these tend to be underrepresented in the resultS. Since Lloyd expected high support among these groups, we thought our prediction might be somewhat low. We estimated Cavness would receive about 25 percent and Angly about 28 percent of the final vote. Angly continued to show significant strength among Democrats, however, and there was some thought that this might wither during the final days of the campaign. Had this occurred, Lloyd might have found himself in the runoff with Don Cavness. It was clear from a limited poll of Hays County, which is also in the 14th District, that the election would be decided in Travis County. Basically, Hays County was evenly split, with Doggett perhaps leading slightly, but with all three leaders falling between 30 and 35 percent of the voters. In the July 17th election, the poll which really counted, Doggett got 43 percent of the vote to lead into the runoff against Angly’s 26 percent. Cavness missed the runoff by around 1,000 votes. My initial reaction to Doggett’s 43 percent was that he had tracked Sissy Farenthold almost exactly, precinct by precinct in Travis County. This was ominous since, despite her lead into her runoff, she had lost’ the county to Dolph Briscoe by 7,000 votes. The Doggett percentages were so close to Farenthold’s on a box-by-box basis that one might surmise that exactly the same people voted for each. A poll taken one week after the July 17 election reinforced our concern. A Doggett victory on August 14 would require that he carry one-third of the Cavness vote in Travis County and a majority of the overall vote in the other counties. This was a complicated problem for two reasons. First, the precinct-by-precinct voting history of Travis County did not indicate that a liberal could beat a moderate. Second, Angly had far greater financial resources than Doggett. In addition, our analysis suggested that the more conservative Cavness voters were more likely to vote in the runoff than were liberals. IN OUR RUNOFF POLLS, we were able to use poll lists and voter registration lists to create our samples, rather than having to depend on the telephone book. On the 23rd of July, we found Doggett ahead with 38 percent to Angly’s 33 percent, with 28 percent undecided. But Doggett was not getting the one-third of Cavness voters which he needed. In addition, we were worried that the liberal precincts would follow their historical pattern of lower turnouts in runoff elections. We expected Angly to run a strong positive campaign, which would help him keep his moderate and liberal support while diminishing Doggett supporters’ motivation. Angly could already expect to capture all of the conservative turnout. While there was some feeling the Watergate affair and Angly’s Republicanism might weaken him, our polls indicated that these were not thought relevant by the voters. Nor were the voters apparently concerned about the no-fault insurance issue, or about blaming Republicans for inflation. As might be expected, there were some interesting cross-cutting themes. Cavness voters agreed with Angly voters that Doggett was too young to make a good senator. And they agreed with Doggett’s supporters’ skepticism regarding Angly’s past effectiveness as a legislator. The data suggested the possibility that, while few people were going to blame Angly for the Watergate, he might nevertheless suffer from a general decline in Republican prestige. Similarly, while Republicans were not directly blamed for inflation, people generally felt that Democrats would do a better job of managing the economy. The obvious strategy for Doggett was to continue stressing such issues as consumer protection, the environment, protection of neighborhoods from unplanned development, and the need for reasonable solutions to the energy crisis. This, combined with a strong appeal to Democratic party loyilty, seemed sound until Angly’s media campaign began in late July. Rather than moving toward the moderate center, Angly’s campaign veered sharply to the right. His media campaign was a textbook example of appeals to what September 7, 19 73 3