A Third Straight Poll Shows a Democrat Leading Ken Paxton in Texas — and He's Winning Black Voters 79-12

A new poll from Texas Southern University's Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center shows Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race for U.S. Senate, 47% to 45%, with 2% backing Libertarian Ted Brown and 6% undecided. The margin sits just inside the survey's error range. It is the third consecutive public poll to put Talarico ahead of Paxton, in a state where no Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994.

The internals are what make the result difficult to dismiss as noise. Mark Jones, a political science fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute who co-authored the survey, said Paxton is holding just 85% of self-identified Republicans while Talarico is consolidating 97% of Democrats. Independents break for the Democrat by a wide margin — 63% for Talarico against 23% for Paxton, with 3% for Brown and 11% unsure. Five percent of likely Republican voters say they intend to vote for Talarico; just 1% of likely Democrats say they will vote for Paxton.

"You put those two factors together, combined with Donald Trump being under water among Texas voters, and that could potentially create the perfect storm that could allow Democrats to do something they haven't done since 1994, and that is win a statewide election in Texas," Jones said.

The demographic splits are stark. Talarico leads among women 55% to 38% while Paxton leads among men 53% to 39%. Paxton carries white voters 53% to 39%. Talarico takes Latino voters 57% to 38% and Black voters 79% to 12% — a number that directly addresses the question that has shadowed his campaign since the primary, when he defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the nomination. Talarico pledged last month to spend $25 million of his campaign money specifically to win over and mobilize Black voters.

The center also fielded a separate survey of 1,200 likely Black voters across Texas, and its findings are less comfortable reading for the state party. Overwhelming majorities said they believed non-Black voters chose Talarico over Crockett in the March primary because Crockett is Black, and that the Texas Democratic Party takes Black voters for granted. Even so, Jones said, only 7% reported being less likely to vote in November as a result — while a third said Crockett's loss made them more likely to turn out. "They're very motivated," he said.

Paxton's underperformance among Republicans traces back to a bitter runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, whom he defeated after Trump's late endorsement. An analysis by a Republican polling firm conducted at the height of that fight had already flagged that a slice of Cornyn's voters would not follow Paxton into the general election. The two earlier surveys showing Talarico ahead came from Texas Public Opinion Research, which had him up five points in late July, and from Fox News.

The campaign's swing factor, Jones argued, is age. Talarico leads voters 34 and under by 30 points, but that cohort typically makes up only about a fifth of the Texas electorate in standard turnout models. "The more voters who are under 35 who cast the ballot, the better things will be for Texas Democrats," Jones said — from the Senate race down to the Railroad Commission contest.