Most Texas voters say they support school voucher-like program

Subscribe to The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to date with the most important Texas news.

A new poll sheds light on how Texas voters feel about one of the most hotly debated proposals in the legislative session: allowing parents to use tax dollars to take their children out of public schools.

A University of Texas at Austin poll released Thursday showed 46% of voters supported the idea, while 41% opposed it. The 5-point difference hasn’t changed since pollsters last asked this question in April 2022, but the political landscape has changed significantly since then.

Gov. Greg Abbott has backed the proposal and is traveling the state to educate parents, especially in rural communities. This idea has historically faced opposition in the Legislature from Democrats and rural Republicans, who are fiercely protective of public schools in their respective districts.

The latest poll was conducted in mid-February and involved 1,200 registered voters. Notably, he found no division between rural areas; the majority of rural voters – 46% – supported the proposal compared to 49% of urban voters. Suburban voters were divided, with 44% in favor and 45% opposed.

While this is good news for Republicans like Abbott, the poll also showed that the idea is not a priority for voters when it comes to education in this session. Sixty-four percent of voters said the legislature should decide an important issue in the K-12 public education system, ranking eighth out of 10 submitted issues. The #1 issue was school safety, which 94% of voters cited as important, followed by “teacher payment/teacher retention” (89%) and “curriculum content” (85%).

Abbott named “freedom of education” and school safety as urgent issues in the session, making them top priorities that lawmakers can immediately rescind. But of late, he’s done the most to push “school choice” legislation, going around the state trying to show legislators the public support he enjoys.

Abbott regularly cites the Republicans’ 2022 primary proposal on the issue, which was overwhelmingly passed, including in rural Texas.

“In rural areas, if the Republican representative votes against it, they are actually voting against their constituents,” Abbott said in a recent TV interview.

Abbott specifically supports education savings accounts, where the state will contribute funds for parents to subsidize the cost of educating their children outside of the traditional public education system. In a UT-Austin poll, respondents were asked if they supported “redirecting state tax revenue to help parents pay for the cost of sending their children to private or parochial schools.”

Often the choice of school is built around support “vouchers”, which is similar to an educational savings account, except that the money from the state goes to the school, not to the parents.

When it came to the voters’ overall priorities for the Legislative Assembly this session, issue number one was immigration and border security. Twenty-four percent of respondents said it should be lawmakers’ top priority, and no other issue scored in double digits. Second place was taken by inflation and the cost of living, which received 8%.

According to other poll results, Abbott’s approval rating has declined slightly, with 46% of voters approving of his work and 43% disapproving. In December, a poll showed a split of 49-41%.

For the first time, polls have tested how much Texas voters like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential nominee who appears to be vying with Abbott for the title of the nation’s most conservative governor. Forty percent of Texas voters said they viewed DeSantis positively, while 38% did not. It wasn’t too different from how voters feel about Abbott – 47% positive and 43% negative.

But among Texas Republicans, Abbott is more popular, with an 85% approval rating compared to DeSantis’ 75%.

The poll also showed how much Texas voters support President Joe Biden running for re-election and his predecessor Donald Trump running against Biden. An overwhelming majority of voters in all-red Texas agreed that Trump should run and Biden should not. But Texas Republicans were more supportive of Trump’s run than state Democrats were of Biden’s candidacy. Republicans said by a 23-point margin that Trump should run, while Democrats said only Biden should run by a 7-point margin.

The survey was conducted using an online panel from 10 to 21 February. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.83 percentage points.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin provides financial support to The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations, and corporate sponsors. Financial sponsors play no role in Tribune journalism. Find their full list here.