Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: How will Rick Perry win re-election with numbers like this?

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' TX-Gov: Look out! PPP's new numbers on GOP Gov. Rick Perry's re-election chances are grim indeed for the incumbent. His job approval stands at an abysmal 41-54 and his re-elects are a horrific 31-62! I guess that happens when you embarrass yourself before a national audience after hanging on to the governor's mansion for a dozen years. Even among Republican primary voters, 47 percent want someone else versus only 41 percent who want Perry as their standard-bearer once more.

And in an actual head-to-head versus AG Greg Abbott, things are even worse: Perry has a slim 41-38 lead, but as Tom Jensen points out, Abbott's name rec is only 59 percent. I'm not sure how Perry can recover from that: Abbott has raised tons of money (thanks to Texas's virtual lack of state contribution limits, and big business preferring him as their paisan to the spent Perry), and indeed, he leads 55-33 among those who have an opinion of him, whether positive or negative. But interestingly, "more conservative" voters prefer Perry, which gives me hope that he can ride extremist enthusiasm to another nomination.

And we really do have to root for Perry here. Take a look at how he performs against a variety of potential Democratic opponents, compared to Abbott's far better showing against the same array:

Democrat	Perry	Abbott
2010 nominee Bill White	44-47	46-39
San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro	47-42	46-36
State Senator Wendy Davis	47-41	46-34
Houston Mayor Annise Parker	47-40	47-35

Note that Perry actually loses to Parker's predecessor, Bill White, who had the misfortune of being the right candidate running in the wrong year. Would he actually be willing to make another go of it? I tend to doubt it, because he'd have to bank on Perry as his opponent, since even White would be a steep underdog to Abbott'and even against Perry, getting to 50%+1 is no easy task.

On top of that, Castro's already ruled himself out and Davis has largely confirmed she'll seek re-election to her Senate seat. (I don't think anyone's thought to ask Parker, though I can't imagine she's interested.) But regardless of who our nominee is, I'm definitely wishing hard for the nastiest possible GOP primary, topped with a Rick Perry cherry at the end.