A new 254 Labs poll of the Texas U.S. Senate race, conducted July 15-31 among 1,001 registered voters, weighted to likely voter targets provided by 254 Labs, finds Democratic candidate James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton in the race for U.S. Senate.
Key findings:
- Talarico leads Paxton in the Senate race: Talarico leads Paxton 48% to 45%, with 6% undecided.
- Independents prefer Talarico 2.5x over Paxton: Talarico leads Paxton 57% to 23% among independents, with 20% undecided.
- Talarico enthusiasm advantage: Talarico leads Paxton 58% to 41% among voters who say they are more enthusiastic about voting in November compared to previous elections.
Full crosstabs, including results among oversampled Black and Hispanic likely voters and oversampled regional likely voters, along with issue priorities, are available to 254 Labs subscribers.
Methodology: YouGov Blue interviewed 1,001 Texas registered voters online from July 15–31, 2026 on behalf of 254 Labs. The sample fielded on quotas according to gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, county, and state geographic region based on voter registration lists, the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as 2020 Presidential vote, 2022 general election turnout, and approximate 2024 Presidential vote based on available results. Respondents were selected to be representative of registered voters in Texas. The sample was weighted to targets provided by 254 Labs. The weights range from 0.13 to 5.3 with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.6. The margin of error (a 95% confidence interval) is approximately 3.6%.
I’m not a subscriber to 254 Labs – I’d never heard of them before I got their email, though I did sign up for emails from them after this – so this here is all I know. It’s not an outlier, we know that much. A new poll from Texas Pulse is due out today, I’ll report on that tomorrow.
A purported lead of 3% of one candidate over the rival with a 3.6% margin of error is meaningless because it’s well within the uncertainty range, which extends in both directions: up and down.
Plus: this “sample” here is small and did not even result from random sampling.
See: https://uspollingdata.com/explainers/polling-margin-of-error/
At best the data suggests that the two are running head to head, with no indication of who is going to win.