{"id":471281,"date":"2026-10-20T05:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T05:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471281\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T05:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T05:38:15","slug":"new-poll-shows-independent-voters-more-likely-to-support-dems-in-texas-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471281\/","title":{"rendered":"New poll shows independent voters more likely to support Dems in Texas elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A new survey from the University of Houston&#8217;s Hobby School of Public Affairs shows the majority of likely voters in Texas who identify themselves as independents plan to support statewide Democrats this November.<\/p>\n<p>The<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uh.edu\/hobby\/texas2026\/statewide26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> 2026 Texas Votes<\/a> report shows the Democratic candidate in every statewide race is leading among independent voters, a change, of course, from previous Texas Votes reports.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S. Senate race in Texas, 60% of independent likely voters surveyed said they plan to vote for Democrat James Talarico, while 32% said they plan to vote for Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n<p>In the race for Texas Governor, 55% of independent likely voters surveyed said they plan to vote for Democrat Gina Hinojosa, while 36% said they plan to vote for Gov. Greg Abbott&#8217;s re-election.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cbsaustin.com\/news\/local\/early-voting-begins-in-travis-county-as-voter-registration-nears-1-million\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ALSO| Early voting begins in Travis County as voter registration nears 1 million<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The results of the survey mark a major shift from previous Texas Votes reports in Oct. 2022 and Oct. 2024.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uh.edu\/hobby\/texas2024\/statewide.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2024 U.S. Senate<\/a> race between incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democrat Colin Allred, the survey found 48% of independent voters planned to support Cruz, while 42% planned to support Allred. <\/p>\n<p>In the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uh.edu\/hobby\/texas2022\/texas2022.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> 2022 race for Texas Governor<\/a>, the survey found 55% of independent voters planned to support Abbott, while 33% planned to support Democrat Beto O&#8217;Rourke.<\/p>\n<p>Mark P. Jones, one of the report&#8217;s authors, said one of the driving factors for the shift is voters&#8217; dissatisfaction with the direction of the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Donald Trump&#8217;s unpopularity, the economy, which is viewed negatively by a majority of those independents&#8211;all of that wrapped up together&#8211;has caused a majority of independents to say, &#8216;I&#8217;m voting Democrat,&#8217; this cycle. It&#8217;s opposition to Trump,&#8221; Jones said.<\/p>\n<p>Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Early voting is underway in Texas until Oct. 30.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is far and away the most competitive set of statewide elections that we&#8217;ve had this century,&#8221; Jones said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A new survey from the University of Houston&#8217;s Hobby School of Public Affairs shows the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-471281","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\/471281","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=471281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}