Texas Senate Race Polls Split on the Margin: CNN Has Talarico Up 49-43 on Paxton, Texas Southern Calls It a Statistical Tie
Two polls released Thursday point the same direction and disagree on the distance - CNN's survey puts the Democrat outside the margin of error, while a 2,000-voter Texas Southern University poll, taken in Houston, has the race deadlocked inside it.
HOUSTON - Five days before Election Day, the Texas Senate race got two new polls on Thursday that agree on the leader and disagree on almost everything else. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS found Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters - a six-point edge the network reported as outside the poll's margin of error. A Texas Southern University poll released the same day found Talarico ahead 49 to 47, with 3 percent for Libertarian Ted Brown and 1 percent undecided - a two-point edge inside its margin of error, which is another way of saying a statistical tie.
The CNN survey was one of four battleground polls the network released Thursday, and Texas was part of a pattern: Democrats led in all four states, with Abdul El-Sayed up 49-42 on Mike Rogers in Michigan, Troy Jackson up 49-45 on Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, and Adam Hamilton up 49-45 on Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas. Democrats need a net gain of four seats on November 3 to take the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 advantage. CNN's polls were conducted by SSRS from October 20 to 27, online and by phone, with margins of error between 4.2 and 4.7 points. In Texas, 59 percent of likely voters disapproved of President Donald Trump's job performance. Texas last elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 1988, and Trump carried the state by nearly 14 points in 2024.
The Texas Southern poll is the bigger sample and the tighter race. TSU surveyed 2,000 likely voters from October 21 to 25 - before Trump's two Texas stops this week in Corpus Christi and Lubbock, where he campaigned for Paxton - with a margin of error of 2.19 points. Its internals explain the closeness: 99 percent of Democrats back Talarico, while 88 percent of Republicans back Paxton and 8 percent cross over to Talarico; among independents, Talarico leads 54 to 38. Both men are underwater personally - 48 percent view Talarico favorably against 51 percent unfavorably, and Paxton's split is worse, 42 favorable to 57 unfavorable.
Read together, the two polls describe a race that has had the same shape all month: every October survey has shown Talarico leading or tied, most of them inside the margin of error, and the prediction markets priced him near 69 percent this week. What neither poll can settle is who is still persuadable - CNN found at least one in eight Texas likely voters saying they could still change their minds - with one day of early voting left. Friday is the last day; the answer arrives Tuesday.
