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Texas
Exclusive: How Texas would vote if independence referendum held today
Texans would vote to remain part of the United States if an independence referendum were held in the Lone Star State, according to a new poll carried out exclusively for Newsweek.
The survey, conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, asked 814 eligible voters in Texas whether they would support the state leaving the American Union to become an independent country and how they would vote in a hypothetical secessionist referendum on this question. Overall, 39 percent were against secession, 33 percent supported it, while the rest neither supported nor opposed it or were unsure. However, in a hypothetical referendum, 67 percent would vote for Texas to remain a state within the United States.
Pro-independence figures told Newsweek that the results demonstrated there was sufficient support for a vote on the issue. Political scientists were more divided, with one saying the results mirrored those of other results for successful secessionist movements in their relatively early stages, such as Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom. Others said that when presented with the potential costs of such a move, even supporters of secession would likely think twice.
There has been growing interest in what would happen if Texas did vote to become an independent nation, as it was for nine years between declaring independence from Mexico in 1836 and joining the United States in 1845. Such calls have been intensified by tensions between authorities in Texas and the federal government over how to handle migration across the Mexico border.
In the latest poll for Newsweek, asked “To what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose Texas succeeding from the United States and becoming an independent republic,” 17 percent of respondents said “strongly support,” 16 percent “support,” 21 percent “neither support nor oppose,” 12 percent “oppose” and 27 percent “strongly oppose” with another 7 percent unsure. The survey was conducted between 1 and 3 February online.
The respondents were also asked how they would vote in a referendum on the question of “Should Texas be a state within the United States or should Texas be an independent country?” with 67 percent replying “a state within the United States,” 23 percent opting for “an independent country” and the remaining 10 percent answering “don’t know.”
There was a notable political divided in how Texans answered the question. Thirty-six percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 said they’d vote for independence, along with just 6 percent of those who voted for Joe Biden. Of those who didn’t vote in 2020, 27 percent said they’d back independence, along with 35 percent of those who voted for third-party candidates.
However, in better news for Texas independence campaigners, when asked for their response to the statement, “If it left the United States, Texas could succeed as an independent country,” 22 percent chose “strongly agree” and another 22 percent chose “agree,” versus 17 percent for “strongly disagree” and 13 percent for “disagree.” Another 20 percent said that they “neither agree nor disagree.”
Daniel Miller, president of the pro-independence Texan Nationalist Movement, told Newsweek the survey demonstrates the need for a referendum on Texan secession from the Union.
“Contrary to the opposition narrative that support for Texit is non-existent, this poll shows that support for the issue is strong enough to warrant a public discussion and a vote on the issue,” he said.
“Even if one believes the accuracy of this poll, it shows that Texit is polling at the same support level as Brexit and Scottish Independence before their referendums were held. It also shows that the opposition to Texit is far weaker than they pretend.
“In the end, the only poll that matters is the one that all Texans get to participate in when Texit goes on the ballot.”
Miller also sent Newsweek a SurveyUSA poll of 625 Texan adults conducted between 21 June 2022 and 30 June 2022, which found 60 percent of respondents would support “Texas peacefully becoming an independent country along with other conservative states,” against 40 percent who were opposed.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek
Professor Matt Qvortrup, a political scientist who specializes in new state formation and author of I Want to Break Free: A Practical Guide to Making a New Country, told Newsweek the results mean the Texan independence movement should be taken seriously.
“These are not bad polls. In fact, they suggest that those who want ‘Texit’ are at the same level of support as those who supported Brexit in 2010—and of course that changed,” he said.
“In independence referendums, you often see that those who want to secede win over the campaign. In Scotland, the SNP (the Scottish National Party) came from 29 percent at the beginning of the campaign and ended on 45 percent.
“In Catalonia, Quebec, and in Scotland, support for independence was in the twenties when the issue was first discussed. This has in all cases moved within touching distance of independence. The polls may seem disheartening to those who believe that Texit is imminent. But these percentages should worry those who—like Governor Abbott—who are against ‘Texit.’”
Tensions between Texan authorities and the Biden administration have surged in recent weeks over how to handle illegal migration across the Mexican border. On January 22, the Supreme Court ruled federal agents could remove razor wire that had been placed at the border to deter crossings on the orders of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. This sparked a furious response from the Republican, who invoked the state’s “constitutional authority to defend and protect itself” and claimed it was being subject to an “invasion.”
Posting on his Truth Social website Trump, by some margin the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner, urged other GOP-run states to send their National Guards to Texas to support Abbott’s border controls.
James Henson, who heads the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek the results are more likely to encourage the defiance of current Texan authorities than trigger a real debate about independence.
“I think the results confirm what we’ve seen in the public discourse around the fantasy of secession: the idea of Texas secession taps into the symbolism of Texas independence, which speaks to a minority share of the state’s residents, especially when there is no consideration of the what the costs and trade-offs would be in such a scenario in either the poll question or the policy discussion, such as it is,” he said.
“A question about Texas independence or secession offers a cost-free opportunity to support a position laden with symbolic meaning (i.e. the idea of an independent Texas) and to express opposition to federal authority, a non-trivial minority of Texans’ will take that opportunity to answer a question in way that lets them do both.
“In terms of political impact, the propagation of such results are much more likely to encourage continued defiance of federal authority by the current crop of elected leaders in Texas than it is to result in any serious or impactful consideration of actual secession or independence.”
Joshua Black, a political scientist who is also part of the Texas Politics Project, said support for independence may well decrease if Texans start giving the question serious consideration.
“These results largely support the notion that the secessionist sentiment is a minority one in Texas,” he said.
“Even when presented in the most favorable of lights with no mention of potential violence or any tradeoffs whatsoever, fewer than a quarter of Texans seem to say they support secession from the United States when put to an up or down vote.
“It’s not unreasonable to expect support to decrease from this already low level if a real discussion began about the realities of Texas becoming an independent country, including the need for a far larger and more involved Texas government, as well as related impacts to trade, business, and even the movement of its citizens.”
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The NHL took the first step toward expansion in Texas earlier this week, agreeing to terms with billionaire Dan Friedkin and his family to explore the feasibility of putting a franchise in Houston or Austin.
Far enough from the Dallas Stars, who relocated from Minnesota in 1993, a new team would not interfere with their territorial rights. And the league has shown no fear of adding one team at a time, so No. 33 does not have to come with No. 34.
“Symmetry I don’t think should necessarily govern expansion,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday. “You expand if you think it makes sense and enhances what the league has.”
What is behind the NHL’s interest in Texas
Money is the obvious answer. Bettman said the total investment of the project would be some $3.5 billion, which would include expansion fees paid to established owners along with the cost of building a new arena.
The Houston Rockets’ arena downtown is publicly owned but controlled by team owner Tilman Fertitta’s Clutch City Sports and Entertainment group. The home of the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars, in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, has a capacity of 8,000 that is a little over half the size of the NHL’s smallest current rink (Winnipeg).
“I would be surprised if the NHL would be OK with an expansion team that does not have a new arena,” said Brian Mills, an associate professor at the University of Texas who teaches courses on sports economics and strategy. “The revenue potential with the luxury boxes and the way that they set those up and the money that they like to extract from the local cities is way too large to pass up.”
They are also huge markets. Houston at nearly 2.4 million is the fourth-most-populated U.S. city; Austin at just over 1 million is in the top 12.
“Obviously it makes sense if you’re a sports league to have a franchise in the nation’s fifth-largest metro area and one that is growing rapidly,” said Holy Cross professor Victor Matheson, an expert in sports economics. “Houston obviously makes sense in general as a destination for any league.”
Austin is smaller but has doubled its population since the mid-1990s and has seen an infusion of people over the past five years. Only eight of the NHL’s existing markets are bigger.
“It’s becoming more and more of a tech city, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more hockey fans here than there used to be,” Mills said. “I would imagine there’s some market for the NHL here in Austin, particularly more than when it was a sleepy, small town capital of Texas 30 years ago.”
History of hockey in Houston and Austin
When hockey was picking up in popularity in the 1960s and ‘70s and the NHL went from six teams to 18, the rival World Hockey Association was founded and Houston got a franchise when the one in Dayton, Ohio, failed to get off the ground.
The Aeros’ inaugural season was in 1972-78, and they were best known for “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe playing for them along with sons Mark and Marty. They won four Avco World Trophies as WHA champions before folding.
An AHL team using the same name existed in Houston from 1994-2013. The Texas Stars have played in Austin since ’09.
“There’s some interest of hockey,” University of Houston economics professor Steven G. Craig said. “Houston is full of immigrants from around the country and around the world. And Austin is sort of similar in the sense of a pretty heterogeneous population.”
Pros and cons of a Houston or Austin NHL franchise
Growing the sport in another so-called non-traditional spot is a big benefit. Smashing successes in places like Las Vegas and Tampa, Florida, show what hockey can do across the Sun Belt when strong ownership is involved.
“Southern cities have been doing pretty well now these days in the NHL: the Lightning and the Panthers,” Mills said of the two teams in Florida. “You’ve got some pretty good hockey teams after some pretty miserable failures with some earlier expansion to the South.”
Abandoning the second try in Atlanta (the Thrashers from 2000-11) was more a failure of ownership than the market. The same could be said in Arizona, where a revolving door of owners led to arena miscues and eventually the Coyotes being sold and moved to Salt Lake City in 2024 to become the Utah Mammoth.
A 33rd team also means 20-23 more NHL players and hopefuls in the minors. The changing landscape of hockey development at the junior and college levels has the potential to churn more talent through the pipeline in North America than ever before, along with players coming from Europe.
“You do have a pretty big pool of players,” Matheson said. “I’m not particularly worried about diluting the talent there because I think there’s a lot of skill.”
What’s next and where the 34th team may be
After this six-month exploratory phase is complete, recent history suggests a season-ticket drive would be one of the subsequent steps. Ticket drives validated interest that led to the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken.
The Board of Governors would need to approve moving forward in the process. No vote has yet been held, though the executive committee supported exploring Houston and Austin.
And while the NHL is comfortable with unbalanced Eastern and Western conferences, getting to 34 teams seems inevitable if it goes to 33. Bettman said the board on Tuesday was updated on situations in Atlanta and Arizona, and it would be no surprise if one of those places got another crack at it.
ere’s everything you need to know about one of the most recognizable trophies in North American sports — The Stanley Cup.
This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletters here.
Texas lawmakers on Tuesday asked the Texas Secretary of State’s Office for assurances that issues with the state’s voter registration and election management system would be fixed before the November midterm election.
“Those fixes have to be done, because if we go into a November election and we don’t, we can’t claim that we have integrity in the voter roll,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Harris County, during a Senate State Affairs Committee hearing that addressed voter registration and voter list maintenance issues.
Bettencourt said he’s heard complaints about the system, known as TEAM, from election officials in Travis, Austin, and Jackson counties, among others.
Christina Adkins, the elections division director at the secretary of state’s office, said the agency is “dedicating every possible resource that we have within our office to resolving these issues.”
“There is nothing more important in our office than this project,” Adkins said.
TEAM was redesigned and redeveloped by the state and relaunched last summer. Election officials say they have struggled with it since then, and though some functionality issues have been resolved, others continue to come up.
For example, election officials have reported that processes such as voter registration status lookups and precinct assignments frequently don’t work properly. In addition, the system often malfunctions when attempting to produce reports of registered voters and voters who have requested a mail ballot, forcing some election officials to produce their own spreadsheets to keep track.
The problems, election officials say, have added financial and staffing strains on counties already strapped for resources.
The system was developed by Civix, a Louisiana-based vendor. The majority of the state’s 254 counties rely on TEAM to plan elections and maintain their voter rolls. Even counties that instead use software from a state-approved private vendor to manage their voter rolls are required by state law to sync their data with TEAM daily, and are required to use TEAM to verify a voter’s identity and their eligibility to cast a ballot.
Groups representing election officials across Texas have asked the agency to halt the TEAM update rollout and address issues that they said “directly impact key parts of the election and jury process.” The groups first outlined their complaints in a letter to Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson in October, and sent another one in February.
Earlier this month, Nelson announced she’d be stepping down as of July 17. Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to appoint her successor.
Secretary of state, vendor working together on fixes
According to public records, the state’s contract with Civix is for $17 million. The secretary of state’s office told Votebeat last year that the money for it came from a mix of state dollars and federal funds allocated under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, earmarked for improving election administration.
Bettencourt raised questions about Civix’s work during the hearing. “When I get half a dozen counties with their hair on fire, and some counties are small, and some of them are big, that means that the vendor is behind on actually delivering fixes to the system,” Bettencourt said.
He directly asked Adkins whether Civix was up for the task. “Yes, sir,” she responded, adding her office is working with the vendor on fixes. Civix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Civix, Adkins said, also manages voter registration systems for other states, including Louisiana and Iowa, but Texas is the vendor’s biggest election management and voter registration software customer.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office has said it anticipated technical issues with this “once-in-a-decade upgrade,” though it pointed to some unexpected challenges that have exacerbated the issues.
The agency specified that it didn’t anticipate the updated system having to handle significant amounts of data from large counties that abruptly stopped using a vendor that had financial problems. It also noted that redrawn boundaries following last year’s unexpected midcycle redistricting created additional complications that prevented counties from mailing out voter registration certificates on time.
Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.
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