Texas Trump Supporters Want To Secede If Clinton Wins

New polling data indicates that the majority of Texan supporters of GOP nominee Donald Trump would favor having their state secede from the U.S. if Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins in November.

On Aug. 16, a Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey of the Lone Star state found that 50 percent of respondents favored Trump by 50 percent while 44 sided with Clinton, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Trump’s advantage of 6 percentage points actually pales in comparison to the previous GOP nominee, former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who won Texas by nearly 16 percentage points in 2012.

59 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton while 53 percent had an unfavorable view of Trump, meaning that neither major party candidate is particularly popular in Texas.

Meanwhile, 54 percent of respondents said that they disapproved of the job performance of President Barack Obama, which is a significantly higher disapproval rating for the incumbent president than the national average of only 45 percent disapproval, according to Gallup.

PPP had asked Texans if they favored their state seceding from the U.S. While only one in four respondents supported secession, that number grew exponentially when Trump supporters were offered a scenario that displeased them.

The survey found that 61 percent of Texans who plan on voting for Trump would support their state leaving the Union if Clinton prevails over their candidate. Among all Texans, 40 percent support secession if faced with a Clinton presidency.

The poll also found that 41 percent of Texan respondents identify as Republican, 35 percent as Democrat and 24 percent as Independent.

The Lone Star State has previously flirted with secession. In 2013, an online petition signed by over 100,000 Texans prompted the White House to explain that previous SCOTUS decision, Texas v. White in 1869, had made it treason for a state to try and succeed from the union, The New York Times reports.

On Aug. 9, Clinton’s running mate, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, signaled that their campaign was intent on shrinking Trump’s current lead in Texas, according to The Washington Times.

“This team, the Clinton-Kaine team, is very serious, we’re very serious about Texas because we know the work you can do,” Kaine told Democratic campaign workers in Austin, Texas. “We’re going to go after Texas.”

The last Democratic nominee to carry the Lone Star State was former President Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Sources: Gallup, Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, The Washington Times / Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr