![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789665733_819_talarico-paxton-parties.jpg\")
article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Democrat James Talarico (left) and Republican Ken Paxton (right) are vying for the U.S. Senate in Texas. (FOX Local)<\/p>\n
The latest polling in Texas’ pivotal U.S. Senate race shows a dead heat between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n
Dead heat in the U.S. Senate race <\/p>\n
By the numbers:<\/p>\n
The September Emerson College<\/a> poll shows a one-point lead for Talarico over Paxton, 47% to 46%. Libertarian candidate Ted Brown had the support of 2% of those polled and 4% were undecided.<\/p>\n The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters from Sept. 12\u201314 and has a margin of error of +\/- 3%.<\/p>\n Big picture view:<\/p>\n The Emerson poll is one of the closest polls released recently. Recent polls from AARP Texas and Univison have given Talarico a lead of 4% and 5% respectively. An Emerson poll from August showed Paxton with a 1% lead.<\/p>\n Did the Republican midterm convention excite voters? <\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n A majority of both major parties said the Republican midterm convention made them excited to vote in November.<\/p>\n Among Republicans, 59% said they were more excited to vote after the convention, while 39% said it had no impact and 2% were now less excited to vote.<\/p>\n On the Democratic side, 53% said the GOP convention made them more excited to vote, while 45% said it had no impact and 2% said they were less excited to vote in November.<\/p>\n Notably, 68% of independent voters said the event made no impact on their excitement to vote, while 28% said it made them more excited and 3% said it made them less excited to vote in November.<\/p>\n Democrats and Republicans agree on Texas’ top issue <\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n Democrats and Republicans agree on what they feel is the biggest issue facing the Lone Star State ahead of the midterm elections: the economy.<\/p>\n Of those surveyed, 38% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats said the economy was the top issue facing the state. Thirty percent of independent voters also cited the economy as the state’s top issue.<\/p>\n Immigration (14%), education (12%), healthcare (11%) and threats to democracy (11%) were the other top issues for voters.<\/p>\n Hinojosa’s support increases, still trails Abbott <\/p>\n Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa’s support among Texans increased one point, from 45% to 46% since the August Emerson poll. Her incumbent opponent, Gov. Greg Abbott’s support remained steady at 49%. Libertarian Pat Dixon garnered 2% of voters’ support, while 4% remain undecided.<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this article comes from a September poll released by Emerson College asking Texas voters about the U.S. Senate and governor races in the state.<\/p>\n Texas<\/a>Politics<\/a>2026 Elections<\/a>Texas Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Democrat James Talarico (left) and Republican Ken Paxton (right) are vying for the U.S. Senate in Texas.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[409,3485,287,27,29,28,216,395,393],"class_list":["post-439005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-election","tag-elections-2026","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tx","tag-tx-politics","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439005","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=439005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}