Thirty-two days from Election Day, the public polls in the Texas Senate race sit inside the noise. A Democrat who has never won statewide is a point or two ahead of the attorney general, in a state the president carried by 14 points two years ago. The campaign’s own numbers, released this week, tell a different story by three points. Both cannot be the final count. Both are worth reading, because they agree on the complaint underneath the horse race.
The public scoreboard
The average of surveys taken from September 12 to September 29 has James Talarico at 47.9 percent and Ken Paxton at 45.5, a Democratic edge of 2.4 points. Handicappers who still publish a rating call it a toss-up.
The newest large public reading, taken September 24 to 28 among 881 likely voters, has it 51 to 49. That is inside a three-point margin of error. A shop that called likely voters on September 28 and 29 had it 46 to 45. Another, in the field September 24 to 26, had Talarico up 44.6 to 41.6, shrinking to 46.8 to 44.9 once undecided voters were pushed, and tied among the people most certain to show up. A survey of 1,007 likely voters from September 19 to 22 had it 49 to 44. Emerson and Texas Southern both had one-point leads. Marist, among registered voters, had six.
Betting markets have priced the Democrat as the favorite, in the low sixties. Markets are not votes. They are a read on the public polls, and they have not priced the campaign’s private ones.
What the party’s own pollster found
On September 29 the Paxton campaign released a survey by Pulse Decision Science, a Republican firm, taken September 24 to 27 among 800 likely voters. The margin of error was 3.5 points. It had Paxton at 48 and Talarico at 45.
That is his first public lead since August, and it is his own poll. Treat it as a campaign document, not a neutral census. His senior advisor, Nick Maddux, said undecided voters are breaking toward Paxton as they learn the Democrat’s record, and that the share of undecided voters has fallen from 11 percent in May to 4 percent. He also said every serious pollster will tell you the numbers have improved since early September. The public average has not moved that way. The campaign’s has, by its own telling.
🚨 TX GOP Internal:
🔴 Paxton 48%
🔵 Talarico 45%
🟡 Brown 3%
⚫️ Undecided 4%What to make of this? Well, you don’t release an internal if it’s not good news or a fundraising push poll. And Paxton doesn’t need any more money.
Also, given how Talarico’s campaign is acting,… https://t.co/969PBmlb6e
— Red Eagle Politics (@RedEaglePatriot) September 29, 2026
The same week a private recording had Paxton telling donors that the party’s Dallas convention dropped his numbers. The advisor called that manipulated nonsense and said the internal trend is up. A candidate and his pollster are allowed to disagree with a tape. The voter will settle which page was right.
There is a second Republican number, narrower and uglier. A party internal published in the Quorum Report, taken September 10 to 15 among 600 likely voters in state Senate District 9, had Talarico at 52 and Paxton at 41, an 11-point Democratic lead in a Tarrant County seat the president carried by 17 points in 2024. That is a 28-point swing from the last presidential map, inside a three-point margin of error, and it is one district, not the state. It is also the kind of number a campaign does not release on purpose. Fort Worth is not the election. It is a crack in a wall that was supposed to be solid.
The shape under the topline
In the September 24–28 public survey, Talarico’s personal rating is eight points above water, 52 percent favorable to 44 unfavorable. Paxton’s is 18 points under, 40 to 58. Republicans are six times more likely to view their own nominee unfavorably, 32 percent, than Democrats are to view theirs, 5 percent. Non-MAGA Republicans back Talarico at 22 percent. MAGA Republicans back him at 4. One in five likely voters who supported John Cornyn in the March primary now say they will vote for the Democrat. In that same survey, 90 percent of Republicans back Paxton and 10 percent cross over. Democrats are at 99 percent for their man.
Paxton won the May 26 runoff over Cornyn, 63.8 percent to 36.2. The people he beat have not all come home. Independents are the other hole. One September reading had them for Talarico 64 to 24. Another had 58 to 26. Women favor the Democrat by about nine points. Men favor Paxton by about eight. Voters under 30 favor Talarico by more than thirty, and one campus survey had the gap at 76 to 18 among likely voters under 35. Early voting opens October 19.
The internal poll does not publish those crosstabs. A three-point lead with 4 percent undecided is a base that has mostly chosen and a middle that has not been shown. If the undecided are breaking his way, as the advisor says, the public polls are late. If they are not, the 48 is a ceiling.
What is moving them
Seven in ten Texans say the cost of living will be extremely important to their Senate vote. Twice as many say they are falling behind financially, 35 percent, as say they are getting ahead, 16 percent. The people falling behind back Talarico by 32 points. The people getting ahead back Paxton by 48. The largest group, the 48 percent holding steady, backs Paxton by three. Asked which candidate will do more about the cost of living, voters pick Talarico 49 to 42.
A Dallas-area survey from September 8 to 10 asked what would most influence the vote. Economy and jobs drew 24 percent. Inflation and the cost of living drew 23. Immigration and the border drew 18. Health care drew 10. Among Hispanic voters the order flipped at the top: inflation 33 percent, immigration 23, economy and jobs 19. A late-summer open-ended question about the state’s future got immigration and the border from 13.5 percent of voters. In November 2024 the same question got 29 percent, including 54 percent of Republicans. By August the Republican share was about half that.
Immigration has not vanished. Voters who say it will be extremely important to their Senate vote back Paxton by 20 points. Nearly half the state, 47 percent, puts it in that category, almost even with the 48 percent who say the president himself will be extremely important. Those who put the president at the center back Talarico by six. The border still works for the Republican. It is no longer the first thing a Texan says when a pollster hands him a blank line. The campaign’s theory, that the Democrat’s record closes the gap among the last undecided, lives or dies on whether that record outshouts the grocery receipt.
One cultural number is sitting there unused in the public polls and absent from the internal release. In the Dallas survey, 63 percent supported restrictions on gender medical treatments for minors and 29 percent opposed them. That is a 34-point majority in a state the Democrat is trying to win by talking only about groceries.
What decides it
A two-point public lead and a three-point private lead are the same race wearing different suits. Texas has not elected a Democratic senator in three decades, and the early vote has not started. Cornyn voters who are still out, independents who say they are falling behind, and a Tarrant County district that has already swung 28 points are the whole election.
If the Republican’s internal is the true picture, the public polls are a media lag and the last undecided voters are learning a record they do not like. If the public average is the true picture, the campaign poll is what campaign polls usually are, a point or two of hope bought by the man who paid for it. The grocery bill is gaining. The border is holding with the voters who still name it. The maps say this state is not close. Neither set of numbers, public or private, agrees with the maps.
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