{"id":481411,"date":"2026-10-30T13:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/481411\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T13:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:34:14","slug":"texas-statewide-races-tighten-as-new-poll-shows-slim-gop-margins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/481411\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas statewide races tighten as new poll shows slim GOP margins"},"content":{"rendered":"

With millions of Texans already voting, a new poll shows Republicans still ahead in most statewide races<\/a>, though not by much.<\/p>\n

At the top of the ticket, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott <\/a>leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa<\/a> by 3 percentage points, 50% to 47%, in a new Texas Southern University<\/a> poll released Oct. 29.<\/p>\n

The poll is among recent polls showing a tight race, as Abbott won his last reelection \u2014against Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke \u2014 by 11 points in 2022. Texas hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since Ann Richards in 1990.<\/p>\n

Here’s a closer look at the governor’s race and other statewide races.<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds his Get Out The Vote rally at Betty Rose\u2019s Little Brisket in Abilene in this still taken from video Monday Oct. 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

Greg Abbott leads Gina Hinojosa in the Texas governor’s race<\/p>\n

The poll surveyed 2,000 likely voters Oct. 21-25 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.19 percentage points.<\/p>\n

The poll found that 48% of likely voters view Abbott favorably and 51% unfavorably, while 45% view Hinojosa favorably and 49% unfavorably, with 6% not knowing enough about her to have an opinion.<\/p>\n

Few voters plan to split their tickets. Among likely voters backing Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton, 99% intend to vote for Abbott and 1% for Dixon. Among Abbott voters, 95% intend to vote for Paxton, 2% for Democrat James Talarico and 2% for Brown.<\/p>\n

On the Democratic side, 95% of Talarico voters intend to vote for Hinojosa and 3% for Abbott and 1% for Dixon, while 99% of Hinojosa voters intend to vote for Talarico and 1% for Brown.<\/p>\n

Republicans lead in most down-ballot Texas races<\/p>\n

The Texas Southern University also looked at how other candidates in other statewide offices are faring:<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Governor: Dan Patrick* (R) 49%, Vikki Goodwin (D) 45%<\/p>\n

Attorney General: Mayes Middleton (R) 49%, Nathan Johnson (D) 45%<\/p>\n

Comptroller: Don Huffines (R) 50%, Sarah Eckhardt (D) 44%<\/p>\n

Land Commissioner: Dawn Buckingham* (R) 50%, Benjamin Flores (D) 44%<\/p>\n

Agriculture Commissioner: Nate Sheets (R) 48%, Clayton Tucker (D) 44%<\/p>\n

Railroad Commissioner: Bo French (R) 47%, Jon Rosenthal (D) 46%<\/p>\n

* Incumbent.<\/p>\n

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

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas statewide races tighten as new poll shows slim GOP margins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With millions of Texans already voting, a new poll shows Republicans still ahead in most statewide races, though…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-481411","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\/481411","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=481411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}