Beto O’Rourke’s decision to run for governor of Texas never made much sense and now it’s becoming clear what a waste of time and effort it has become. A Quinnipiac poll released today shows Beto trailing governor Greg Abbott by 15 points.

In a head-to-head matchup in the race for governor of Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott leads Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, 52 – 37 percent, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of Texas registered voters released today. Republicans back Abbott 90 – 5 percent, independents back Abbott 47 – 37 percent, and Democrats back O’Rourke 87 – 6 percent…

A slight majority of voters, 52 percent, have a favorable opinion of Abbott while 42 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him.

Only 36 percent have a favorable opinion of O’Rourke while 47 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him and 16 percent have not heard enough about him.

Abbott’s 15-point lead is up from the 9-point lead he had over Beto in another poll last month.

Things don’t improve when you look at individual issues. Abbott trounces O’Rourke on the economy (60-32), gun policy (60-33), the border (58-35) and COVID (54-39). The only issue where Beto comes close is abortion where Abbott leads him by only 8 points (49-41).

Given the recent passage of the Texas abortion law and the fact that the case went before the Supreme Court, you might imagine that’s a top issue for voters in Texas. But no, in fact voters say the top issue is the border.

Asked to choose the most urgent issue facing Texas today, the Texas-Mexico border tops the list (33 percent), followed by the economy (11 percent), abortion (9 percent), COVID-19 (8 percent), and election laws (8 percent).

So the top issue overall is one where Abbott leads O’Rourke by 23 points. He’s certainly focused on that issue. He tweeted this yesterday:

Texas has added a boat blockade to secure the border from cartels who try to smuggle drugs & illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande River.

This adds to Texas building a border wall & deploying 10,000 National Guard & Dept. of Public Safety officers.https://t.co/QM8Gm7PDw3

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 7, 2021

Even if you just look at the responses coming just from Democrats, abortion is not the top priority (though it is nearly tied for the top spot):

Among Democrats, the most urgent issues are COVID-19 (16 percent), election laws (16 percent), abortion (15 percent), and health care (12 percent).

There’s really nothing at all in this poll that suggests Beto has a chance of winning this race no matter what kind of campaign he runs. Abbott’s polling was briefly down in September and maybe at the time things looked better but at this point this is just Democrats pouring money down a hole. So let’s hope they keep doing that. Every dollar that pours into the Beto campaign is one less dollar that can be used in a race Democrats might actually win.

Finally, there was some potential excitement in this race when Matthew McConaughey talked about running fir governor during the summer and into the fall. I don’t know if anyone really thought he could win but you never know with celebrities. If nothing else, it might make the race more entertaining. But McConaughey announced he was not formally getting into the race at the end of last month. He put out this 3-minute-long video explaining that, after looking closely at it, he’d decided politics was not for him, at least not right now. I’m guessing Beto O’Rourke is privately wishing he’d put out a video like this.

🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/CKIYE7V6v6

— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) November 29, 2021