Greg Abbott widens lead over Beto O’Rourke with likely voters in latest UT poll

Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke speaks to a packed auditorium during a stop on his College Tour campaign at Texas State University on Oct. 5, 2022, in San Marcos. (Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune)

Gov. Greg Abbott leads Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke by 11 percentage points with three days until early voting starts for the election, according to a new poll from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

It is one of the wider advantages that Abbott has registered with likely voters in public polling. Abbott had a smaller 5-point advantage in the last UT poll, which was done around early September, though that was among registered voters. After Labor Day, pollsters tend to switch from registered-voter samples to likely-voter samples.