Rice-run poll: Parker leads Locke by 13 percent as Houston mayoral election nears

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

With election day at hand, a poll conducted by Rice University’s Center for Civic Engagement shows City Controller Annise Parker ’78 with a 13 percentage point lead over former City Attorney Gene Locke. Parker has the support of 49 percent of respondents to Locke’s 36 percent. Fifteen percent said they are unsure whom they will support.

The poll is based on interviews with 442 registered voters in the city of Houston between Dec. 7 and 9. It has an error rate of plus or minus 4.7 percent. It was prepared for KHOU-TV and KUHF-FM.

Parker opened her lead by appealing to voters concerned about taxes and the economy, said Robert Stein, Rice’s Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science, who oversaw the poll. She has also been able to identify her campaign with the popular outgoing mayor, Bill White, Stein added. Although White, who cannot seek re-election because of term limits, has not formally endorsed either candidate, “he has not distanced himself from Parker,” Stein said.

More than half of the survey’s respondents were white (53 percent), 29 percent African-American, 10 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian and 4 percent “other.” Democrats made up a large plurality with 48 percent, compared with Republicans (29 percent) and independents (23 percent).

While Locke’s campaign has had success in generating a large turnout during the early voting period that ended Dec. 8, Parker has increased her standing among white Republicans and Democrats, Stein said. Parker leads among Republican voters 55 percent to 29 percent. Locke leads among Democrats 51 percent to 41 percent, but Parker has a significant lead among independents (58 percent to 17 percent).

Parker and Locke face each other in a Dec. 12 runoff after emerging from the Nov. 3 first-round election as the top two voter-getters.

The poll data can be viewed at http://ccrd.rice.edu/Mayor-2009/.

The University of Houston Center for Public Policy Survey Research Institute assisted with the research.