James Talarico’s poll lead over Ken Paxton in the crunch Texas Senate battle has fallen by one point according to two new opinion polls, which also showed the number of undecided Texan voters has been reduced. Democrats are hoping to win control of the Senate at the November midterms and victory in Texas—a traditional Republican stronghold that last elected a Democratic senator in 1988—would significantly boost their chances. Friday saw the publication of the latest Texas Public Opinion Research survey which polled 1,007 likely Texan voters between September 19 and 22.
The poll, which had a 3.6 percent margin of error, found state Representative Talarico leading current Texas Attorney General Paxton by five points with 49 percent of the vote against 44 percent. The last Texas Public Opinion Research survey, of 1,000 likely Texas voters conducted from August 21-24, gave Talarico a six-point lead, with 48 percent of the vote against Paxton’s 42 percent. Notably the proportion of undecided voters has also fallen from seven percent in August to three percent this month, with Libertarian candidate Ted Brown also gaining two percentage points.
However, the decrease in Talarico’s support remains within the margin of error. Separately a new Texas Southern University survey gave Talarico a lead of just one point, with 47 percent of the vote against 46 percent for Paxton and three percent for Brown. This survey of 1,800 Texan likely voters took place between September 15 and 19 and has a 2.31 percent margin of error.
By contrast in the previous Texas Southern University poll Talarico was ahead by two percentage points, on 47 percent to Paxton’s 45 percent with another two percent for Brown. For this, 1,200 likely Texan voters were surveyed over July 27 and July 30. Once again however, the one percent decrease in Talarico’s lead is less than the margin of error.
Over the same period the proportion of undecided voters fell from six percent to four percent. Newsweek contacted the Talarico and Paxton senate campaigns for comment via email on Saturday outside of regular office hours. Talarico leads Paxton according to eight different pollsters, though several are within the margin of error, and thus too close to call.
An Emerson College survey, conducted September 12-14, gave Talarico a 1-point lead with 47 percent of the vote to Paxton's 46 percent. The poll surveyed 1,000 voters with a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Between August 30 and September 1, AARP surveyed 895 likely voters, giving Talarico a 4-point lead with a 3.3-point margin of error.
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