{"id":441137,"date":"2026-09-19T15:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/441137\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T15:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:12:11","slug":"new-poll-signals-movement-in-talarico-vs-paxton-texas-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/441137\/","title":{"rendered":"New poll signals movement in Talarico vs Paxton Texas Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new Texas Pulse poll shows the Democrat widening his lead over the Republican in the Texas Senate race<\/a>, with Election Day more than a month away.<\/p>\n

Published Sept. 17, the ReconMR\/Texas Pulse poll showed that Democrat James Talarico<\/a>‘s lead has grown to 6 points \u2014 outside the poll’s margin of error \u2014 over Republican Ken Paxton<\/a>, 49%-43%.<\/p>\n

“This movement can also be seen by looking at independent voters who now favor Talarico by 40 points, 64-24%, up from 23 points, 53-30% in July,” ReconMR Senior Research Analyst Lindsey Hendren said.<\/p>\n

Here’s a deeper look at the poll and how it compares to other September polls.<\/p>\n

\"Supporters<\/p>\n

Supporters of Democratic candidate for US Senate James Talarico cheer during a rally in Houston, Texas, on September 13, 2026.<\/p>\n

James Talarico widens lead over Ken Paxton in Texas Senate race<\/p>\n

The latest Texas Pulse poll was conducted Sept. 8 to 11 among 614 likely Texas voters and has an overall margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.<\/p>\n

The poll found that Paxton has a negative favorability rating \u2014 38%-55% \u2014 down slightly from 40-52% in July. Talarico has a positive favorability rating of 50-39%, up from 46-39% in July.<\/p>\n

When asked who they think will win the election, 48% of voters say Talarico while 45% say Paxton.<\/p>\n

The poll also found another shift: a quarter of voters didn’t have an opinion about Talarico in June \u2014 now it’s just 10%.<\/p>\n

“Paxton’s Senate bid is being undermined by defections from within his own party,” Hendren said. “While nearly all Democrats say they are supporting Talarico, just under 9 in 10 Republicans say they are supporting Paxton.”<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, candidate for US Senate, speaks during the Republican National Midterm Convention at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas on Sept. 9, 2026.<\/p>\n

What previous Texas Senate polling showed<\/p>\n

This is the latest poll in September as the election cycle enters its final stretch to Election Day on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n

Here’s what September polls have shown so far:<\/p>\n

Mateo Rosiles is the Texas Connect reporter for USA TODAY and its regional papers in Texas. Got a news tip for him? Email him at mrosiles@usatodayco.com.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New poll signals movement in Talarico vs Paxton Texas Senate race<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new Texas Pulse poll shows the Democrat widening his lead over the Republican in the Texas Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2135,1967,152728,27,29,28,1863],"class_list":["post-441137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-james-talarico","tag-ken-paxton","tag-latest-poll","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441137","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=441137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}