Democrat James Talarico is tied with Republican Ken Paxton in Texas’s closely watched U.S. Senate election, according to a New York Times-Siena University poll released Tuesday.
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The survey suggests President Donald Trump’s unpopularity and Paxton’s past controversies are giving Democrats a chance to win a statewide contest in Texas for the first time since the 1990s.
Overall, the poll finds 47 percent of likely voters support Paxton, the state’s attorney general, while 47 percent support Talarico, a state lawmaker who earned a master’s degree in theological studies. Another six percent are undecided.
Trump won Texas by 14 percentage points, but the Times-Siena poll finds 53 percent disapproving of his job performance today, with 57 percent disapproving of his handling of the war in Iran and 60 percent disapproving of his handling “the cost of living.”
Texas voters clearly prefer Talarico to Paxton on a personal level: 51 percent say he has “the right kind of moral values,” and 56 percent say he “has good character,” compared with 39 percent who praise Paxton’s moral values and 38 percent who say he has good character.
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In 2023, Paxton was impeached by the Republican-controlled state House on multiple charges of abuse of office, while the state Senate acquitted him.
Yet there are other signs Texas may revert to its Republican leanings by November, with likely voters saying they prefer Republicans control the U.S. Senate by a 50 percent to 44 percent margin.
The Times-Siena poll was conducted June 19-27 among a random sample of 656 likely voters in Texas, with live callers administering surveys in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
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