Matthew McConaughey Is Leading in Surprising Texas Governor’s Race Poll
Hypothetical head-to-head matchups indicate that McConaughey could beat both Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott and Democrat Beto O’Rourke.
If Matthew McConaughey decides to run for governor of Texas in 2022, his chances of winning are alright, alright, alright, according to a shocking new poll.
A hypothetical matchup against incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott shows that the quirky Magic Mike star leads by 8 points in a survey released by the University of Texas and the Dallas Morning News, Mediaite reports.
An impressive 43 percent of participants said they would vote for McConaughey, while 33 percent backed Abbott and 22 percent would pick a different candidate.
McConaughey’s head-to-head numbers against Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke, who recently entered the race, are even stronger.
O’Rourke, who lost his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and ran for president in 2020, polled well behind McConaughey at 27 percent to 49 percent.
But in a three-way race, McConaughey and O’Rourke would most likely split the anti-Abbott vote, giving the Republican governor a re-election win. That poll has Abbott at 37, McConaughey at 27 and O’Rourke at 26, with the latter taking 74 percent of the Democratic vote.
Should McConaughey pull the trigger on a Texas gubernatorial bid—and gain a significant slice of the state’s Democratic support—he could very well be the candidate most likely to defeat Abbott.
The True Detective actor recently told the New York Times that he is “measuring” a run and would only do so if he believed he could be “useful” to the electorate.