News Roundup: New Poll Shows Ted Cruz And Beto O’Rourke Neck And Neck In Senate Race

Our daily look at Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelAugust 28, 2018 5:13 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

A new poll released Monday finds Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke are neck-and-neck in the US Senate race.

Spencer Kimball is director of the Emerson College Poll, which surveyed 550 registered Texas voters.

“So we jumped into the field last week on Wednesday and we finished up on Saturday – about 4 days of data collection, and we found in the U.S. Senate race between Cruz and O’Rourke, basically a statistical dead heat,” he says.

38 percent of respondents say they plan to vote for Cruz – while 37 percent are going for O’Rourke. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Kimball explains they dug a little deeper into the data and looked at how the candidates faired among people of different ages.

“We started to look closer at these age divides and we see this with O’Rourke and Cruz. O’Rourke is winning the 18-34-year-old age group, 47 to 28, and all of a sudden we get to the older people, those over 75, and Cruz leads that group by about 22 points,” Kimball says.

But Kimball points out the polling numbers only tell part of the story.

While O’Rourke is doing much better than Cruz among younger voters, it’s not clear how that will translate come November.

“Now of course O’Rourke’s got the problem of getting these voters out to vote, younger voters are notoriously known for not voting in midterm elections,” Kimball says.

21 percent of the registered voters polled say they’re still undecided.

A Texas man remains behind bars after shooting at women drivers.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office confirms to Texas Standard the defendant, 29-year-old Nicholas D’Agostino is still in custody. He was arrested last Thursday in connection with two recent shootings in Katy, outside Houston.

But D’Agostino has admitted to at least five separate road rage incidents where he shot at women who were driving, according to Harris County court documents. In these same documents, police report seeing rants from D’Agostino on Facebook where he complains about female drivers, whose – quote – “sole purpose is to give birth to male children.”

His total bail is set at $400,000. He’s due in court in September.

The San Antonio Spurs and devoted fans are saying goodbye and gracias to Manu Ginobili. The team released a series of videos honoring the 41-year-old NBA player and future hall-of-famer after he announced his retirement Monday. 

Ginobili expressed his gratitude on Twitter, writing, “It’s been a fabulous journey. Way beyond my wildest dreams.”

And over the course of his 16-season career with the Spurs many fans traveled from his native Argentina to watch the four-time NBA champion. That includes Alejo Aguiar and Leandor Cisterna.

“Really my friend did something really stupid, he sold his car to come here and see Manu. He’s getting married in a month. [I don’t think I’m going to get married because my wife was not very happy, but everything for Manu, everything.”

The two-time NBA All-Star ranks in the franchises top five all time in games, points, assists, and steals. Ginobili joined the Spurs in 2002, forming a powerful big three with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker.

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