That’s the headline, but this is the bulk of the story.
Rep. James Talarico
Fewer than one in 10 Black voters in Texas say they are less likely to vote in November’s midterm elections due to U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s defeat in the Democratic primary, according to a poll released Tuesday that suggests James Talarico could face limited electoral fallout from the racial tensions that have persisted since he secured the U.S. Senate nomination.
The survey of 500 Black Texans who voted in recent elections, fielded by Texas Southern University, provides a temperature check of the crucial voter bloc as Talarico continues efforts to coalesce Black Democrats behind his candidacy.
While numerous Black political leaders have backed Talarico, some elected officials and activists have said he, and the Democratic Party as a whole, have to do more to mobilize voters and listen to their worries. Those calls have fallen largely on Talarico, however, after he defeated Crockett, one of the state’s most prominent Black politicians, in a contentious primary that was fraught with racial issues and saw Black voters overwhelmingly back Crockett.
The poll found that Crockett’s defeat left just 7% of Black Texans less likely to show up in November, while an accompanying TSU survey found that 79% of likely Black voters intend to vote for Talarico, compared to 12% who supported Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton, the attorney general.
The findings suggest that many Black voters appear to be sticking with Talarico even as an overwhelming majority — 77% of recent Black voters — said they believe the Democratic Party in Texas takes Black voters “for granted.” Eight in 10 also said they believed Crockett’s race influenced the decision by non-Black primary voters to support Talarico.
Pollsters at TSU’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center conducted both surveys starting July 27. The poll that surveyed a representative sample of the likely statewide electorate was in the field through Thursday and had a +/- 2.8% margin of error, while the one that focused on recent Black voters was conducted through Sunday and had a 4.4% margin of error. Respondents to the latter poll had voted in at least one election since the November 2022 midterms.
In the poll of statewide voters across all demographics, Talarico received 47% to Paxton’s 45%, continuing a stretch of surveys showing the Democrat with narrow leads within the margin of error. Republicans led by single digits in all other statewide races in the survey, with GOP Railroad Commissioner nominee Bo French leading by the narrowest margin at 3 points.
You can see the poll memo here. In the other statewide races, Greg Abbott (49-43) and Dan Patrick (46-39) had the biggest leads while as noted Bo French (44-41) had the smallest. In the limited crosstab data provided, it looks like the differentiating factor for Talarico is that he does better among white voters than the rest of the Dem lineup. He trailed Paxton 53-39 in that demographic, with every other Dem trailing by at least 20 and Gina Hinojosa’s 34 percent being the second best showing. This in turn is likely the result of a modest amount of Republican crossovers. From the poll memo:
Virtually all Democrats (97%) intend to vote for Talarico, with 1% intending to vote for Paxton and 2% undecided. In contrast, only 85% of Republicans intend to vote for Paxton today, with 5% intending to vote for Talarico, 4% for Brown and 6% still unsure for whom they will vote.
Finally, 98% of those voters who intend to cast a ballot for Gina Hinojosa in the Texas gubernatorial race intend to vote for Talarico, a notably higher percentage than that of Greg Abbott voters who intend to vote for Paxton (89%). The remaining 2% of Hinojosa voters remain undecided, while the remaining Abbott voters are split between 3% who intend to vote for Talarico, 2% who intend to vote for Brown, and 6% who are still undecided.
This is broadly consistent with other polls. Latino voters were 57-38 for Talarico, 55-41 for Hinojosa. There continues to be quite the range of results in this demographic subsample.
TSU’s poll data from just before the May primary runoff is here, with my writeup of it here. For what it’s worth, Talarico and Paxton were tied at 45 at that time. Also for what it’s worth, this TPR story from a month ago suggested that the “Talarico has problems with Black voters” narrative wasn’t really supported by polling evidence at the time. I’ll say this much, I’m very glad the Democratic primary for Senate was decided in March and not in May.
Via Daily Kos, I see that there was another positive poll for Talarico released this week, from an outfit called Wedgewood Polls, whose memo is here, I couldn’t find a decent news story about it. They had Talarico up 48-46. Daily Kos noted this was the fourth straight poll showing Talarico in the lead. According to the NYT poll tracker, there have been twelve Senate general election polls since Paxton won the runoff. Talarico has led in seven of them, Paxton in three, and they were tied in the other two. The most recent polls with Paxton in the lead were a Republican sponsored poll (49-47) and the June UT/Texas Politics Project poll, which had Paxton up 43-42. Both were in June. I’m not a big believer in momentum, but I’d rather be on a winning streak than a losing streak, that’s for sure.