THE HARD PART IS AHEAD – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:  We keep warning here about Republican overconfidence.  The November elections are not in the bag. 

Proof comes in the form of a new poll in usually Republican Texas.  Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry won a smashing victory in the gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, but a Rasmussen survey warns that the general election will be much tougher.  Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, reports:

Now Perry's bid for an unprecedented third term confronts Democrat Bill White, who also easily won his party's primary even in a crowded seven-candidate field.

But how is Perry gonna tag his opponent as a Washington outsider when White is the three-term mayor of Houston which, despite some suspicions up in Dallas, is still within Texas?

A new poll out Thursday afternoon indicates that's gonna be a tougher challenge for....

...Perry. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely November voters, finds Perry leading White by six points, 49-43. Back in January when White recalibrated his political ambitions from a Senate seat to a high-backed chair in Austin, Perry led him by 10 points in a hypothetical match-up.

And...

Republicans hope to pick up several governorships (i.e. Oklahoma), as they did last November in New Jersey and Virginia. But they also need to hold their own existing state capitols. Connecticut looks like a real problem now. What can you say about California? And, for the moment, Texas is close.

COMMENT:  The lesson is that each state is different.  Republicans must run a 50-state campaign.  If it's close in Texas, it's going to be close in other places.  And, despite the GOP lead nationally, the overall race will probably tighten as November approaches. 

March 4, 2010