A Bennett, Petts & Blumenthal poll; conducted 9/7-9 for Rep. Max Sandlin (D); surveyed 400 likely voters; margin of error +/- 4.7% (release, 9/16). Tested: Sandlin and state Rep. Louie Tyler (R).
General Election Matchup
Now 5'04
Sandlin 47% 41%
Tyler 43 44
Undec/Oth 10 15


And the Houston Chronicle is a bit miffed at Tom DeLay:

Sept. 16, 2004, 10:13PM
Houston Chronicle Editorial

DELAY'S DEVILMENT
Egregiously redrawn seats illustrate misbegotten redistricting
The deformed spawn of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, new congressional districts finally enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature stand as a freakish monument to political megalomania.
And that's before a vote has even been cast in elections that seem likely to send at least a few more DeLay allies, or automatons, to Washington.
The campaigns unfolding across the state make clear that all other considerations are to be sacrificed in an attempt to keep the narrow Republican hold on power in the U.S. House.
Texas moderates, including the two most senior members of the state's delegation (Martin Frost of Dallas and Charlie Stenholm of Abilene), face the prospect of defenestration merely because they have a "D" after their name, a scarlet letter in the eyes of DeLay and his enablers.
Speciousness abounds. In the swath of Central Texas covered in the new 17th District, Republicans contend that it's an outrage that President Bush's ranch at Crawford (in McLennan County, the geographical pivot of the new seat) is represented by a Democrat (incumbent Chet Edwards). Come on, it's a ranch, not Lourdes.
Back when Bush was at his bipartisan best, he was living in nasty old pinko Austin, in a Governor's Mansion represented in the U.S. House by Democrat Lloyd Doggett, one of the most liberal members of the Texas delegation. Bush lived through that.
The Chronicle's Washington columnist, Cragg Hines, has begun to take a look at some of the races, and his first report, on Wednesday's Outlook page, reflected the frustration communities feel at being jerked around in the redistricting process.
Brazos County - and its major industry, Texas A&M - grew accustomed to steady, influential legislators. As a result of DeLay's demands, Brazos County could end up being represented in the U.S. House by a tyro, (Republican state Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth) whose home and natural interests are in a Fort Worth suburb.
A senior Texas Republican said Aggieland voters, dependent on their House member to look after A&M's business, especially research funding, "miss the influence of a Phil Gramm or a Tiger Teague. They want someone to settle in and stay there."
That's certainly not a given, as long a DeLay's hand is on the tiller.
DeLay, interestingly, has raised money for Wohlgemuth in Houston but he's been sparse on the ground in the district itself. Perhaps that's because of a 2002 dust-up after he declared that parents interested in a "good, solid, godly education" should not send children to Texas A&M or Baylor, the major educational institutions in the redrawn 17th and always considered two of the most conservative big universities in the state.
DeLay backtracked quickly, but only after he had aired his true, revealing feelings.