(February 19, 2008)—A new poll shows Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in a statistical dead heat in Texas as early voting gets underway Tuesday around the state.

Clinton needs a win in Texas to regain the momentum she’s lost in a string of primary defeats, but the CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll shows her with the support of 50 percent of the state’s Democrats to Obama’s 48 percent.

On the Republican side, frontrunner John McCain enjoys a solid lead with 55 percent to Mike Huckabee’s 32 percent.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has the support of 11 percent of the state’s Republicans.

While about a quarter of Democrats say they still may change their minds about which candidate to support in the March 4 primary, more than one-third of Republicans say the same thing.

About eight in 10 Democrats say they would be satisfied if either Clinton or Obama becomes their party's nominee, and similar numbers of Republicans would be happy with McCain or Huckabee winning the GOP contest.

Democrats named the economy, health care and the Iraq war as the top three issues in picking a candidate, and trust Clinton more than Obama to handle each of them.

Republicans cited the economy, illegal immigration, terrorism and Iraq and immigration as their top issues, and said McCain would handle them best.

The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted Feb. 14-17.

It included telephone interviews with 553 likely Texas Republican voters with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, and 529 likely Texas Democratic voters with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 points.

[CentralTexasVotes.com: Candidates, Campaigns And More ]
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