The latest survey on the red hot U.S. Senate race between Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O'Rourke shows Cruz holding onto a significant lead, but also disproves the claims of Democrats that the highly charged Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings would convince suburban women, who have been the bedrock of the Texas Republican ascendancy for two decades, to defect to the Democrats, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"97% of Republican women continue to stand behind Cruz, with only one percent defecting to O'Rourke," said Jim Henson of the University of Texas Politics Project, which conducted the poll.
"If there was some sense that Republican woman, suburban or otherwise, were going to rethink their allegiance to the Republican Party due to the Kavanaugh hearings, not so much," Henson said.
There had been hope expressed by Democrats that Republican woman, exposed to the Democrats' claims that the GOP 'ignored' alleged sexual assault victims in Kavanaugh's past, would convince Republican women in key Senate races to shift to the Democrat candidate.
Henson's poll is in line with other recent polling on the Senate race.
"We found Cruz ahead of O'Rourke by 6 percentage poitns, with Cruz over the psychological 50% threshold at 51%, and "O'Rourke at 45%."
He says where O'Rourke has been able to make this race competitive is to reach out not to Republicans but to Independent voters.
"Among independents, O'Rourke holds a narrow lead, 51-39 lead, with five pecent going for the Libertarian, and 5% saying someone else."
The poll shows few undecideds, meaning there is little wiggle room for O'Rourke to pick up new support in the coming six days.
"Democrats are 94% for O'Rourke, and Republicans are 93% for Cruz, and that means there is not a lot of defection going on."
The poll shows that the neither of the two things Democrats had hoped for are happening. "Never Trumper" Republicans are now moving to O'Rourke, and neither are hard core Trump supporters who are still upset over Cruz' refusal to endorse Trump at the 2016 Republican Convention.