Amazing people support Paxton after all the criminal behavior......

Talarico and Paxton tied in latest Texas Senate poll

Paxton is running behind the incumbent Republican governor.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

James Talarico and Ken Paxton are locked in a dead heat in the open Texas Senate race in a new survey released Tuesday, with the state emerging as a major battleground in the fight for the Senate.

A New York Times/Siena poll showed Talarico, the Democratic state lawmaker, and Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, tied at 47 points apiece among likely voters. Six percent of voters indicated they hadn’t yet made up their minds over who to support.

Paxton, who has been trailed by scandal, is running behind GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who maintains a lead over his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa. Respondents preferred him to Hinojosa —also a state lawmaker — by a 51 to 44 margin.

That’s even with President Donald Trump’s popularity underwater in Texas, a state he won by roughly 14 percent in 2024. Just 44 percent of voters approved of the job he is doing in the White House, with 53 percent of respondents expressing disapproval.

Texas has long been a white whale for the Democratic Party, and Talarico’s campaign is viewed as the most credible chance at winning a major statewide race since Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss in the 2018 Senate race. Talarico boasts a massive fundraising advantage in the race.

Democrats believe that Paxton’s primary win over Sen. John Cornyn in May gave the party an opening in a state that has long eluded them. Republicans worried they’d be forced to part with as much as $150 million to keep him afloat.

But Paxton has worked to consolidate a Republican Party that was bruised during the grueling primary, which saw Trump back the challenger in the closing days of the race.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which backed Cornyn throughout the primary, set up a joint fundraising committee with Paxton in early June.

The New York Times/Siena poll was conducted by telephone June 19-27, with a random sample of 656 likely voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.