Two Texas Senate polls put Republican Ken Paxton ahead of Democrat James Talarico: one has Paxton up by two points, while another finds the race moving from a previous Talarico lead to a narrow Paxton edge.
A new YouGov poll of registered voters dated June 12 showed Paxton leading Talarico, 49 percent to 47 percent, in the Texas U.S. Senate race. The same YouGov poll showed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democrat Hinojosa, 47 percent to 40 percent, in a Texas governor matchup.
A separate University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll showed Talarico moving from an eight-point lead over Sen. John Cornyn in April, 42 percent to 34 percent, to a one-point deficit against Paxton in June, 42 percent to 43 percent.
CNN Senior Political Reporter Aaron Blake wrote, “Big shift in Texas… Why? Paxton consolidated the GOP. In April, Paxton got 63% of GOP voters, with 10% going to Talarico. Now, Paxton gets 84%, with 5% for Talarico. Talarico still leads big w/ indies.”
The polling follows Paxton’s Republican Senate primary runoff victory over Cornyn, after which Talarico appealed to Cornyn supporters by saying they had “a place in our campaign,” while Paxton thanked Texas and said Republicans “must unite to defeat the most well-funded, radical Democrat in America.” Trump, who endorsed Paxton in the runoff, congratulated Paxton on a “tremendous win,” said he and Cornyn would watch Paxton become a “fantastic, common sense Senator,” and criticized Talarico as “the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen.” Talarico has also claimed Paxton has a criminal record, though a Breitbart News fact check rated the claim false, noting that Paxton has no formal criminal record and that charges against him were dropped.
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