HOUSTON -- The final 11 News / KUHF Houston Public Radio poll shows Controller Annise Parker has a 13-point lead over former City Attorney Gene Locke.
In the poll, which was conducted this week by the Center for Civic Engagement at Rice University, likely voters pick Parker 49 percent of the time, and Locke 36 percent of the time. Fifteen percent of likely voters remain undecided. (See more poll data from the Center for Civic Engagement here.)
"Like in the general election, voters are breaking late," said 11 News political expert Bob Stein, who conducted the poll.
"In order to win, Gene Locke needs to get a much higher turnout in the African-American community than we are projecting, which is 29 percent of the vote," he said. "I think he also needs to start taking a bigger chunk of those undecided voters."
The poll consists of telephone interviews with 442 registered Houston voters who described themselves as likely or very likely to vote in the mayoral race, or who told pollsters that they had already voted. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.7 percent.
Parker has higher support than Locke among men (55 percent to 34 percent), a slight edge among women (46 percent to 38 percent) , and a wide lead overall among white/Caucasian voters (63 percent to 25 percent), the poll shows. Locke wins among African American voters, 65 percent to 23 percent.
Locke is also performing better than Parker among voters who describe themselves as Democrats, the poll finds. Democrats say they will vote for Locke 51 percent of the time, versus 41 percent for Parker. Parker does better than Locke among independent voters and Republicans. Among Republicans, 55 percent say they support Parker, and 29 percent support Locke. Eight percent of Democrats are undecided, and 16 percent of Republicans have yet to make up their minds.
