Rep. James Talarico
Three weeks ago, Republican super PACs began dumping tens of millions into Texas’ Senate contest, unleashing an ad blitz they hoped would hurt Democratic nominee James Talarico and boost Republican Ken Paxton.
Yet Fox News dropped a poll Thursday evening that showed the money is not working, with Paxton trailing Talarico 49% to 51% among likely voters.
Oddly, the poll found Talarico’s lead grows among the universe of all registered voters, with 53% choosing Talarico and 46% choosing Paxton. That 7-point spread among the electorate as a whole is even larger than Fox News’ pollsters found in July, before President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune began pouring money into the state.
After blanketing the airwaves with bigoted, false, and absurd ads that sought to paint Talarico as a dangerous radical who would force sex changes on kids, voters actually view Talarico more favorably now than they did in July. The poll found 53% of registered voters had a favorable view of Talarico—34% of whom has a strongly favorable opinion of the Democrat. In July, 49% of voters viewed Talarico favorably, 25% of whom did so strongly.
Paxton, meanwhile, is extremely underwater, with 59% of registered voters viewing Paxton unfavorably, 43% of whom view him strongly unfavorably. That’s even worse than his July numbers, when 51% viewed him unfavorably.
Paxton’s struggles are multifaceted.
Trump’s approval rating in Texas is low, with voters angry at his handling of the economy and the war in Iran.
See here for the poll data. Fox New had Talarico up 51-48 in late July, so this is more or less an identical result, with two additional factors that lean in Talarico’s direction. One is as noted that he has a bigger 53-46 lead among registered voters. (The 51-48 result from before was among RVs, so this is an improvement on that.) In addition, the poll only named Talarico and Paxton as options, skipping Libertarian candidate Tad Brown, who usually pulls in a couple of points, which I would expect come from Republican leaners. I would bet that had he been named as an option, Talarico would have a slightly larger lead.
The poll also asked about the Governor’s race, and there Greg Abbott led Gina Hinojosa 52-47 among likely voters. The good news here is that the split was 50-49 among RVs, which is where Fox News had it previously. I don’t know what kind of screen they used to separate out the likely from the merely registered voters, but the RV sample was 1,203 in size, while the LVs were 881.
The main reason why the RVs lean more Democratic, I would suggest, is that Trump’s approval rating was 44-55 among LVs, and an abysmal 41-58 among RVs. I mean, that’s close to national levels, and suggests he’s deep underwater with the not-as-likely voters. If they’re right, then this is a good illustration of the turnout factor in this race. Higher turnout has hardly been a panacea for Dems in Texas – see 2020 and 2024 for some examples – but this year that should be a big deal. If you have the time to phone bank or (especially) block walk, it’s very much worth the effort.
I hope and pray the long arc of the universe bends toward justice this November!
in addition to phone banking and block walking … check your own registration and encourage everyone you know to do the same.
popular opinion only matters if the people are able to vote.