Texas Public Opinion Research (TPOR), a nonpartisan public opinion initiative that examines what Texans believe and the policies they support, today released a new poll focused on the 2026 Democratic Senate primary race between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and State Rep. James Talarico. In addition to head-to-head matchup numbers, this survey of Democratic primary voters explores voter familiarity with and perceptions of the two candidates, Crockett and Talarico’s respective supporters’ reasons for supporting them (and doubts about their opponent), and who voters see as best positioned to win the general election for U.S. Senate in Texas. The poll also takes a deep look at what primary voters think it will take for a Democratic candidate to win the general election for U.S. Senate in Texas, including which demographic groups Democrats need to make gains with, candidate attributes, persuading Trump voters and turning out the base, and electability—and how they see the two candidates stacking up on these measures.
The survey of 1,290 likely Texas Democratic primary voters conducted from January 14 to January 21, 2026, and has a margin of error of ±3.7 percentage points. The full topline, deck, and recording or our presentation is available here, and crosstabs are available upon request.
Key Findings
- Likely Democratic primary voters are statistically tied between US Rep. Jasmine Crockett (38%) and State Rep. James Talarico (37%) in the Senate primary. Twenty-one percent remain undecided.
- Crockett leads with Black, non-college-educated, and middle-aged voters, while Talarico leads with white, Latino, and college-educated voters.
- Likely Democratic primary voters say they are seeing and hearing from Crockett (56%) more often than Talarico (41%).
- Talarico voters are most motivated by his character, integrity, and relatability (32%), and his electability (16%).
- Crockett supporters are most motivated by her people-first advocacy (22%), her values alignment (17%), and her competence, intelligence, and experience (16%).
- On the question of which candidate is more likely to appeal to voters Democrats need to win in 2026 and beyond, Talarico holds a two-point advantage (38% to 36%), with 25% saying they’re not sure.
- Likely Democratic primary voters overall believe that Crockett is more likely than Talarico to turn out loyal Democrats by 10 points, 42% to 32%.
- Talarico supporters believe his demographics and religious messaging make him the better candidate, and are worried about the bias Crockett would face.
- Crockett supporters point to her authenticity and fight as why she can win, and worry that Talarico’s name ID and visibility are too low to be viable.
“Crockett and Talarico are running neck-and-neck in the Texas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate,” said Luke Warford, director of TPOR. “Texas Democrats are saying loud and clear that they want a candidate who puts the general election in play by both appealing to Trump voters and energizing the Democratic base. Both Crockett and Talarico supporters believe their candidate possesses those qualities, with an advantage to Talarico on winning new voters and an advantage to Crockett on base mobilization.”
As the election draws nearer, both candidates will have to make the case to Democratic voters that they can get the job done in November.”
There’s more, so read the rest. Now we have one poll with Talarico leading, one poll with Crockett leading, and one poll with them basically tied. Choose your own adventure. This one doesn’t give any general election matchups, but the previous poll, the one that had Talarico leading, showed that both Dems did equally well against all three potential Republicans, the difference being that they performed better against Ken Paxton than they did against John Cornyn or Wesley Hunt. It would be nice to have more than one result for the general, and by that I mean now or at least before we start voting for the primary, to add a bit more context. For now, this is what we have. The TPOR poll asked some interesting questions, so check it out.