Breaking down Democrats’ chances to beat Ken Paxton in Texas

It’s a question that has been asked for a very long time now: Can Democrats finally end their decadeslong statewide losing streak in Texas?

And every few years, the answer comes back the same: No. Lucy has yanked the football away, yet again. Texas Democrats still haven’t won a statewide race since 1994 or a Senate race since 1988, the year before James Talarico was born.

But it’s a question that’s clearly legitimate in 2026. That’s because Democrats got their coveted opponent in the state’s US Senate race: the baggage-ridden Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. (Paxton drubbed Sen. John Cornyn in a runoff Tuesday after a late endorsement from President Donald Trump.)

“I got a message to Republicans in Texas and nationwide: Do not take this general election for granted,” GOP Sen. Ted Cruz said on a new episode of his podcast. “It is easy to say it’s Texas, it’s red, we’re going to win — and I believe we are going to win — but I also think the Democrat nominee James Talarico is a dangerous candidate.”

Indeed, the data suggest Democrats’ chances are as good as — or better than — ever in the last three decades. History and logic suggest it’s still worth being circumspect.

As for Talarico, it remains to be seen how he’ll play.

Democrats love that he speaks openly and comfortably about his Christian faith and hope he can make a play for conservative-leaning religious voters.

But he also has something of a Kamala Harris problem. That’s because, like Harris, he said some rather “woke” things in recent years when that was more en vogue on the left — things like that there are six biological sexes and that “God is nonbinary.” He has called the American flag a “complicated symbol.” And while Republicans have falsely accused Talarico of being a vegan, he did in 2022 talk about reducing meat consumption and said he was running a “non-meat” campaign for the state House.

Those kinds of comments shouldn’t be undersold in this race. They could be real hurdles with culturally conservative voters — signals to them that maybe Talarico, despite all his talk about his faith in God, is far from one of them.

Polls show encouraging signs for Democrats

But at least for now, there are some real reasons for Democrats to be optimistic.

That’s because the environment is increasingly good for their party, and the data back up the idea that Paxton could be a drag on Republicans.

The national “generic ballot” keeps trending toward Democrats, to the point that some recent polls show them with a double-digit lead. And with Trump’s approval rating falling lower than ever before, it’s increasingly conceivable the environment could be better for Democrats than in 2018, when Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz by just 2.6 points.

And crucially for Texas, Trump has lost huge ground with Latino voters, who look like they’ll revert to a strong Democratic constituency after trending Republican in recent years.

The polls of this specific race are also quite good for Democrats right now.

An April University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll actually showed Talarico leading Paxton by eight points among registered voters, 42%-34%. That’s even as GOP Gov. Greg Abbott led his race by 6 — a whopping 14-point gap between Paxton’s and Abbott’s performances.

A more recent Texas Southern University/YouGov poll showed a tied Senate race among registered voters, 45%-45%. But again, Paxton underperformed other statewide candidates like Abbott (who again led by 6).

These are the kinds of polls you basically never see in Texas. In fact, even O’Rourke — Democrats’ most successful Senate candidate in decades — polled consistently behind Cruz through all of 2018.

Paxton has also proved he underperforms other Republicans in actual elections, at least somewhat. In 2022, he notched the smallest margin of any statewide Texas Republican that cycle, winning by 9 points even as others won by between 11 and 15 points.

Paxton has work to do

A deeper dive into the new polls also suggests Paxton has work to do in patching things up after a brutal GOP nominating contest.

For instance, while exit polls showed O’Rourke ran about even with Cruz among independent voters (50%-47%) in 2018, Talarico currently leads among them by more than 20 points with independent registered voters in both polls mentioned above.

Both polls also show Talarico’s image is significantly better than Paxton’s. While Talarico’s net favorable rating is 10-11 points positive, Paxton’s is between 6 and 9 points negative.

The University of Texas poll actually showed only 1 in 10 independents liked Paxton, while half disliked him. It also showed Paxton winning just 63% of Republicans, with 11% going for Talarico and 20% undecided.

Paxton did better with Republicans in the Texas Southern poll, taking 85% of them. But that was still less than Talarico’s 96% of Democrats.

Why caution is warranted

But the other way to look at all that is that Paxton has plenty of upside right now.

One thing you’ll notice from these same polls is that Paxton wasn’t doing much worse than Cornyn was. He did maybe 1 or 2 points worse on average, even though Cornyn was supposedly the much more broadly acceptable candidate.

If you’re a Republican, you look at that and think maybe the current polls are just a temporary reflection of the brutal GOP nominating contest. It was one of the most expensive in history, after all, and the runoff lasted more than two months.

We do tend to overestimate how much brutal primaries actually matter by the time the general election rolls around. And the polls suggest many of the undecided voters in this race lean to the right — and thus they could ultimately come home to Paxton and the GOP.

History also suggests voters tend to behave in a more partisan fashion in Senate races than governor’s races because a senator is a vote for one side or the other. So even if a significant chunk of conservative-leaning Texans don’t like Paxton, they might vote for him to foreclose a Democratic-majority Senate.

And to be clear, this race could matter significantly in that majority math. Democrats need to win at least two states that Trump carried by double digits in 2024 in order to flip the Senate.

Alaska and Ohio might be the better opportunities, given the proven candidates they have running in those races.

But Texas is now pretty clearly on the map, at least.

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Source: Breaking down Democrats’ chances to beat Ken Paxton in Texas