Rep. James Talarico
Texas Public Opinion Research (TPOR)—a nonpartisan polling initiative dedicated to exploring Texans’ beliefs and priorities—today released a new poll of Texas likely general election voters, focused on the 2026 statewide races, including the contests for U.S. Senate, Governor, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller, Agriculture Commissioner, Land Commissioner, and Railroad Commissioner.
This is the second release in a series of monthly tracking polls that TPOR will release through the November 3 election.
The poll finds Democrat James Talarico (49%) leading Republican Ken Paxton (44%) by five points in the U.S. Senate race. Meanwhile, Republican Greg Abbott (50%) leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa (46%) by four points in the Governor’s race. In the Attorney General’s race, Republican Mayes Middleton leads Democrat Nathan Johnson by three points (46% to 43%). Notably, the race for Texas Railroad Commissioner has narrowed, with Republican Bo French leading Democrat Jon Rosenthal by just one point, 45% to 44%.
Note: For this tracking poll series, topline results include leaners.
The survey of 1,007 likely Texas voters was conducted from September 19 to September 22, 2026 and has a margin of error of ±3.6 percentage points. The full topline is available here, and crosstabs are available upon request.
There’s a lot, it’s a long post and they have a ton of data, so go read the rest. I’m just going to note that TPOR has been very consistent in its polling. They had Talarico up on Paxton by five in April (and also up on Cornyn by three at that time), by five again in July, and by six in August. In that time, his number has gone 46, 45, 45, 48, and now 49; Paxton’s 44 this month is his high score as well. They had Abbott up 49-42 over Gina Hinojosa in August, so while it’s never great to see him at 50 (a rare occurrence this cycle), her support is higher than it was before. And they had Mayes Middleton up over Nathan Johnson 45-39 in August – they did not do the other races that month. The base level of Dem support is up across all three races, more so than the base level of Republican support. Make of that what you will. I expect TPOR will have another poll for October, we’ll see where we are then.