Is Debra Medina the next Scott Brown?

Nobody -- well, hardly anybody outside perhaps the Medina household -- expects the small business owner and anti-Washington crusader to be the next governor of Texas. Heck, until recently she wasn’t even much of a factor in the shoot-'em-up between the two leviathans of Lone Star politics, Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.



Then again, up until a couple of weeks out, nobody thought Brown -- a little-known state senator and ex-Cosmo model -- stood much chance of swiping the Massachusetts Senate seat held for almost a half century by the late Edward M. Kennedy. That said, a poll out Tuesday is raising eyebrows all over Texas.

The survey by Public Policy Polling showed Perry leading the GOP field with 39%, followed by Hutchison at 28% and Medina -- a favorite of the Tea Party crowd -- at 24%.

More significant, among self-identified conservatives -- those most likely to turn out in the March 2 primary -- Perry had 42% support to Medina’s 25% and Hutchison’s 23%.

Given the survey’s 4.8% margin of error, Hutchison, long considered the most popular politician in Texas, is effectively tied with the little-known, meagerly funded Medina.

(How meagerly? As of Tuesday, she had raised less than $600,000, a pittance compared to the $50 million Perry and Hutchison are expected to spend between them.)

Of course, no poll can be taken as gospel. The survey, conducted after last month’s second and final GOP gubernatorial debate, had a fairly small sample: 423 likely Republican voters. Still, it seems...