{"id":271082,"date":"2026-04-29T08:25:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/271082\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:25:21","slug":"texas-democrat-talarico-leads-senator-cornyn-and-ag-paxton-in-senate-race-poll-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/271082\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrat Talarico leads senator Cornyn and AG Paxton in Senate race poll | Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats\u2019 hopes of winning control of the US Senate<\/a> in November\u2019s midterm elections<\/a> have been boosted by a poll showing James Talarico, the party\u2019s candidate in Texas<\/a>, leading in a head-to-head matchup against two potential Republican opponents.<\/p>\n

The Texas Public Opinion Research<\/a> (TPOR) survey has Talarico, a Democratic state legislator, ahead of the GOP incumbent senator, John Cornyn<\/a>, and his internal party challenger, Ken Paxton, in one-on-one contests.<\/p>\n

According to the poll, which surveyed the intentions of 1,865 likely voters, Talarico has a three point lead \u2013 44% to 41% over Cornyn, who has been a senator since 2002 and served four consecutive terms.<\/p>\n

Talarico, a former seminarian who has made a point of fusing his Christian values with progressive policies, has a five point lead, 46% to 41%, in a hypothetical contest with Paxton, the Texas<\/a> attorney general who has gained a reputation as a conservative firebrand and been embroiled in controversy after misconduct charges led to him being impeached in 2023.<\/p>\n

Cornyn and Paxton face each other in a primary runoff election on 26 May before one will appear on November\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n

Each have vied for the endorsement of Donald Trump<\/a> \u2013 whose support has long been deemed the bellwether of viability for Republican candidates. So far, Trump has declined to endorse either man, describing both as \u201celectable\u201d and \u201cgreat people\u201d.<\/p>\n

TPOR\u2019s figures suggest Talarico\u2019s lead over both is heavily driven by the support of Black, Latino and college-educated voters. Talarico also has large leads among moderate and independent voters.<\/p>\n

Republicans have a 53-47 advantage in the 100-seat Senate, meaning Democrats need to make a net gain of four seats in November to retake control. Recent polls show the party with a fighting chance<\/a> of pulling off such an electoral feat, although it is generally judged a tougher challenge than retaking the House of Representatives<\/a>, where the Republicans have a wafer-thin majority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats\u2019 hopes of winning control of the US Senate in November\u2019s midterm elections have been boosted by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-271082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}