Texas Senate Race: Talarico Jumps to 69-32 on Both Prediction Exchanges While the Polls Still Call It Tied
Polymarket and Kalshi moved together, three points, on Thursday - Talarico 69 cents, Paxton 32 - even as Fox News and UMass Lowell show a dead heat and the eleven October polls average out to a three-point race.
HOUSTON - The money and the surveys now disagree about the Texas Senate race by a wide and widening margin. On Thursday, both major prediction exchanges moved in lockstep, three points toward Democrat James Talarico: 69 cents for Talarico against 32 cents for Republican Ken Paxton on Polymarket, and exactly the same prices on Kalshi, where the market has drawn $52.7 million in volume and the exchange's own margin forecast sits at Democrats by 2.5 points. A price is not a poll - it is traders' money - but a better than two-to-one favorite is not what the polling describes.
The eleven October polls average a Talarico lead of about three points, and the field underneath that average is genuinely split. Emerson College put him ahead 48-46, a Cook Political Report battleground survey 49-44, and the Texas Public Opinion Research poll released October 23 had him up 51-47, powered by a 66-to-28 lead among independents. Against that, the Fox News poll released October 21 found the race tied at 49-49 - Paxton having consolidated conservatives, rural voters and former Cornyn primary voters after trailing 51-49 a month earlier - and UMass Lowell found a 45-45 tie on October 8. Marist (47-45) and the University of Houston Hobby School (48-46) sit in between.
What the traders are weighing, beyond the horse race, is structure: Talarico raised $64 million in the third quarter to Paxton's $18 million; more than 4.5 million Texans voted in the first week of early voting, up 74 percent from the same point in 2022, with Harris County leading the state; and Paxton's personal numbers drag - Fox found his favorability 17 points underwater, and Cook's Amy Walter wrote that he is roughly twice as unpopular as President Trump among Texas voters. Trump rallied with Paxton in Corpus Christi and Lubbock on October 27, with Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz joining the trail over the weekend. Two swing factors remain live: Libertarian Ted Brown's roughly 3 percent, which Emerson's Spencer Kimball says likely breaks toward Paxton if it melts, and Republican Election Day turnout - Rice University's Mark Jones has cautioned that a Democratic edge in the early days guarantees nothing about the full early period, which ends Friday, or about Tuesday itself.
