Another former Rice Baskbetball player does well...

U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, trailed Republican challenger Pete Olson by 17 percentage points early last week, according to the survey by Zogby International. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

In both Republican-friendly districts, a key factor appeared to be the Democratic candidates' inability to run strong among independent voters and cut deeply into the ranks of Republican voters.

In the 22nd Congressional District, represented by Lampson after the 2006 resignation of Republican powerhouse Tom DeLay, only 5 percent of Republican voters in the survey had defected to Lampson.

Lampson led Olson among independents, 45 percent to 39 percent. But only 16 percent in the poll identified themselves as independent; while 52 percent said Republican and 32 percent said Democrat.

Lampson says he votes according to voters' wishes and has made headway for the district by taking a centrist, bipartisan role in the House.

Olson, a former Senate aide and Navy pilot, said his conservative outlook matches the district's conservative bent.

The district covers southeast Harris County, most of Fort Bend County and parts of Brazoria and Galveston counties. Libertarian John Wieder, whose name was not mentioned in the poll, is also in the race.

METHODOLOGY

Zogby International conducted for the Houston Chronicle a telephone survey Oct. 20-22 of 404 voters in Congressional District 22, producing a margin of error of 5 percentage points, and 421 voters in Congressional District 7, with a margin of 4.9 percentage points. All voters confirmed they were likely to participate in the Nov. 4 election or early voting. Voters were selected at random from a list of their telephone numbers.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6079570.html

there's been some controversy in the blogosphere over Zogby's methodology, at least in his presidential polls, where his likely voter models have a equal split between Dems and Repubs, which doesn't reflect current party identification numbers and expected heavy turnout in certain dem-leading population subsegments, and thus favor republicans by a few pts.

17 pts is obviously a huge margin, but i have a feeling that election day results will be much tighter.

Unfortunately, there are no other polls to go with for this district, so this 17 point lead is what they've got. Considering the GOP lean of the district and the fact that there was no Republican candidate on the ballot the last time (you had to know who to write-in if you wanted to vote Republican - I know, the electorate should be informed before stepping in the booth) a 10 point win isn't all that it looked like in 2006. But stranger things have happened on election day.