CQ Politics | By Greg Giroux

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison won’t resign her seat until after she participates in a Republican primary for governor next March.

According to the Associated Press, Hutchison plans to say in a speech Saturday in Galveston that she’ll remain in the Senate to fight Democratic proposals to overhaul health care and enact a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gases.

Politics1 | Vin Gopal

TEXAS. The latest Rasmussen poll shows Governor Rick Perry leading US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison by a 46-36 vote in next year’s GOP gubernatorial primary.

Houston Chronicle | No Author Listed

Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested today that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison may not run against him in the 2010 Republican primary, even though Hutchison said this week that she has $12.5 million in the bank and plans to challenge him.

“My goal is to not have a primary,” Perry told reporters after he chaired a state cash flow committee meeting. Asked whether he thinks Hutchison may decide not to enter the GOP primary, he said, “It’s always a possibility.”

Perry has questioned before whether Hutchison will end up running for governor, and she has shied away from the contest against Perry in previous election years after considering it. This time she has put together a large state campaign organization and has raised millions of dollars for a state election.

Her spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.

CQ Politics | No Author Listed

Texas Gov. Rick Perry holds a 38 percent to 26 percent lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with 27 percent undecided should she decide to challenge him in a Republican primary, according to a University of Texas-Austin Poll conducted June 11-12. The margin of error is 5.14 points.

On the Democratic side, the poll is not much help since 64 percent are undecided at this early stage. The only one of four candidates tested that broke double-digits was Kinky Friedman at 12 percent. The writer, singer, humorist and sometime politicians ran for governor as an independent in 2006 and placed fourth in the six-person race.