Filtering: 1,000 Registered Voters from Texas's 23rd Congressional District, chosen using Registration Based Sample from Aristotle International, were interviewed 12/1/06 through 12/3/06. Of them, 471 were judged to be "likely" voters. Crosstabs reflect Likely Voters. Margin of Sampling Error: ± 4.6%

Bonilla (R) 53%
Rodriguez (D) 46%
Undecided 1%

Bonilla gets 70% of White votes. Rodriguez gets 72% of Hispanic votes. In SurveyUSA's turnout model, 59% of likely runoff voters are white, 36% are Hispanic. If Hispanics, who are 55% of the population in TX 23, make up more than 36% of those who vote in the Runoff, the contest will be closer than SurveyUSA's numbers here show.

Bonilla gets 94% of Republican votes. Rodriguez gets 89% of Democratic votes. Independents split. Bonilla wins by 25 points among higher-income voters, and by 15 points among middle-income voters. Rodriguez wins by 25 points among lower-income voters.

The bolded section is key. Hispanic turnout in Texas as shown on November 7th under performs the registration levels. But this is a low-turnout runoff election. Trying to predict which side is going to turnout is indeed the mystery.

As it stands with the early vote in Bexar County, 48% of the vote is coming from the heavily Hispanic southside locations and 52% from the more anglo northwest. That's just one county, though the epicenter of voter turnout. And you never know, Election Day could still change.

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