Two weeks into the 2025 Texas Legislature, we're getting a clearer picture of how the public's priorities line up with lawmakers. And so far, they appear simpatico. The first in a series of University of Houston surveys examining Texans' attitudes on key state issues finds broad support for three items already listed as top priorities by state leaders: school choice, property tax relief, and border security.

The survey finds the highest level of support for school choice, or education savings accounts. The Texas Senate has already taken up SB 2, which would establish optional education savings accounts for parents to use on private school. "For school choice or education savings accounts, two-thirds of Texans support this proposal," says Mark Jones, Rice University political science professor. "With support especially strong among Latino Republicans and white Republicans, followed by black Democrats, and lowest among white Democrats."

Indeed, every one of those groups showed majority support for school choice, including 70 percent of Latino Republicans and 66 percent of black Democrats. Even the lowest-level supporters, white Democrats, were still at 52 percent.

On other issues, 50 percent of Texans support using the state's budget surplus for property tax relief, the highest share on that question followed by 40 percent who want to use if for teacher pay raises. And on the issue of border security, 40 percent support increasing state funding on the border and 35 percent want to maintain the current funding level. That means 75% of Texans want to keep funding border security at its current level or spend more on it.

Jones tells KTRH that so far, Texans seem fairly agreeable on these issues. "Property tax relief is something that spans Democrats, Republicans and Independents, school choice has majority support but tends to be more popular among Republicans, and immigration legislation also enjoys broad appeal across Democrats, Republicans, Independents," he says.

Michael DelGiorno