Texas GOP gubernatorial candidates Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Debra Medina debate at the WFAA Channel 8 studios in Dallas in January. Poll: Medina closing on Hutchison

Tea party-backed candidate Debra Medina is closing on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas’s Republican gubernatorial primary, increasing the odds the race led by Gov. Rick Perry will be thrown into a runoff.

According to a survey out Tuesday by Public Policy Polling, Medina, a nurse who’s now a businesswoman, had the support of 24 percent of likely Republican primary voters, trailing the three-term senator by only 4 percentage points. Perry, who leads Hutchison by double-digits in several polls, got 39 percent in the latest survey.


If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the March 2 primary, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff on April 13.

The poll of 423 likely Republican voters found Medina particularly strong among those angry at Washington. Among the third of voters in the poll who said they disapproved of Washington, Medina topped Perry, 37 percent to 32 percent.

Both Perry and Hutchison had approval ratings of at least 50 percent in the poll, making Medina’s surge even more surprising.

“The big question for Debra Medina is whether there’re enough unhappy voters out there for her to get into a runoff with Rick Perry,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. “That would rank up there with the results of the Massachusetts Senate election as an early shocker in the 2010 political season.”

The poll has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.