Texas Senate Race Is a Statistical Dead Heat Days Before Election Day as Talarico and Paxton Fight for a Seat Democrats Last Won in 1988

A Statistical Dead Heat in the Final Days

Early voting ends Friday, Oct. 30, in Texas, and the race that could reshape the fight for control of the U.S. Senate is still too close to call. With Election Day set for Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, Republican Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, and Democrat James Talarico, a state representative and former public school teacher, are separated by only a few points in every major survey released this month. No pollster has found a comfortable lead for either man, and no campaign can credibly claim the outcome is settled.

The stakes explain the national attention. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988, when Lloyd Bentsen won a fourth term even as the Republican presidential ticket carried the state. Bentsen was not yet finished in public life at that point, and Talarico, who was born the following year, was not yet alive. In the nearly four decades since, Texas became one of the most reliably Republican states in federal elections, and Democratic candidates who came close in statewide races still fell short. That history is why a genuinely competitive Senate contest here matters far beyond Texas. If Democrats can win this seat, they will have proven they can compete in a state that Donald Trump carried by a double-digit margin in 2024. If Republicans hold it, they will have preserved a central piece of their Senate map in a difficult midterm environment.

Paxton is running to succeed four-term Sen. John Cornyn, whom he defeated in the May Republican primary runoff after receiving Trump’s backing. Talarico won the Democratic nomination outright in March, defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett and others by presenting himself as a Democrat who could appeal beyond his party’s base. Libertarian Ted Brown is also on the ballot, and his small share of support has become one of the most closely watched details in the final polls, because voters who start with a third-party candidate do not always stay there by Election Day.

It is important for readers to understand what the numbers below can and cannot say. Polls are snapshots of a changing electorate at a particular moment, taken with different samples, different turnout models and different ways of handling undecided voters. They are not results, they are not predictions with certainty, and a lead inside a poll’s margin of error means the race should be described as a statistical tie, even if one candidate’s name appears first. That caution applies to every survey in this story.

What the Latest Polls Actually Show

The newest statewide survey comes from Texas Southern University, released on Oct. 29. The university’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center polled 2,000 likely voters between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25 and found Talarico at 49 percent, Paxton at 47 percent and Brown at 3 percent, with 1 percent undecided. The margin of error was 2.19 percentage points, which means Talarico’s two-point advantage sits squarely inside the range where a tie cannot be ruled out. In plain terms, the poll describes a dead heat, not a clear lead.

That result lines up closely with the rest of October polling. An Emerson College Polling survey for Nexstar Media, released on Oct. 22 after interviewing 1,000 likely voters from Oct. 17 to Oct. 19, put Talarico ahead 48 percent to 46 percent, also well inside its 3.1-point margin of error. When Emerson pressed undecided voters to choose which candidate they leaned toward, the contest tightened further to 49 percent for Talarico and 48 percent for Paxton, with Brown at 3 percent. Emerson’s director noted that Talarico’s support had crept up slowly since August while Paxton’s had stayed largely flat, but also warned that if Brown’s support fades in the final days, Paxton would be the more likely beneficiary, because Brown’s voters lean more independent and Republican.

Other surveys have given Talarico a somewhat wider, though still modest, edge. A battleground poll published by the Cook Political Report on Oct. 21, conducted Oct. 9 to Oct. 13 among 934 likely voters by firms from both parties, found Talarico leading 49 percent to 44 percent, a five-point gap just outside that poll’s 3.2-point margin of error. A Fox News poll released the same day found the opposite extreme: a perfect tie, 49 percent to 49 percent, among 1,398 likely voters surveyed Oct. 15 to Oct. 19, with a margin of error of 2.5 points. Fox reported that the tie represented movement toward Paxton since September, when Talarico had led in its polling, and attributed the shift in part to Paxton bringing home conservatives, rural voters, suburban women and Republicans who had supported Cornyn in the primary. Earlier in the month, a New York Times survey on Oct. 3 had Talarico ahead 51 percent to 45 percent, the largest Democratic lead in the recent run of polls.

Taken together, the pattern is consistent even if the exact gaps differ. Talarico has led or tied in most October surveys, usually by between zero and five points, and almost always by a margin that leaves the race within reach for either side once turnout is factored in. Averages that combine the surveys put Talarico roughly two points ahead, which in a state as large and diverse as Texas is best understood as a coin-flip contest heading into the final weekend, not as evidence that the Democrat is safely in front.

Two Very Different Candidates, Two Very Different Cases

Paxton and Talarico offer voters sharply different biographies and sharply different arguments about what this election is about, and each campaign believes the contrast works in its favor.

Paxton has served as Texas attorney general since 2015, after earlier service in both chambers of the state legislature. As the state’s top law enforcement official, he built a national profile by challenging federal policies in court, taking a hard line on immigration and border enforcement and aligning himself closely with Trump. His case to voters is that Texas needs a senator who will continue that fight in Washington, defend the border, protect gun rights and stand up to what he describes as a radical Democratic agenda. He and his allies portray Talarico as far to the left of most Texas voters, call him the most radical candidate in the state’s history in campaign rhetoric, and argue that a Democrat who wins in a low-turnout midterm would govern very differently once in the Senate. Paxton’s team also stresses a basic structural fact that no poll can erase: there are simply more Republican voters than Democratic voters in Texas in a typical election, so if Republicans who have not yet voted turn out on Election Day at normal rates, Paxton can still win even while trailing narrowly in likely-voter surveys.

Talarico’s biography is central to his own case. He taught language arts at a public middle school in San Antonio before winning a seat in the Texas House in 2018, and he later earned a divinity degree while serving in the legislature. He frequently speaks about his Christian faith, his experience as a teacher who struggled on a teacher’s pay and his work on education, health care costs and ethics in government. In the legislature he helped pass a school finance overhaul, backed a cap on monthly insulin copays, and authored measures that supporters cite as examples of bipartisan lawmaking. His campaign argues that Texas voters are tired of corruption and insider politics and want a senator focused on the cost of living, public schools and working families. Talarico’s team points to his support among independents and Hispanic voters in recent polling, his strong fundraising through the fall, and Paxton’s long record of legal and political controversy as reasons the Democrat can assemble a broader coalition than Democrats have managed in Texas in recent cycles.

Paxton’s history cuts both ways, and both campaigns know it. He was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House in 2023 on allegations that included bribery and abuse of office and was then acquitted by the Texas Senate. He also spent years under a securities fraud indictment from early in his tenure as attorney general before that case was resolved, and in 2025 a judge ruled he had violated the state’s whistleblower law in firing aides who had reported him to the FBI, a judgment his office ultimately did not overturn on appeal. Paxton’s supporters dismiss the controversies as politically motivated attacks that voters have already weighed in past elections, noting that he kept winning statewide while the cases were pending and then beat a four-term incumbent senator in his own party’s primary. Talarico’s supporters argue the record is precisely why so many voters view Paxton unfavorably and why even some Republicans remain open to crossing over.

Favorability, Independents and the Issues Beneath the Numbers

Beneath the head-to-head numbers, the Texas Southern University poll offers a clue to why the race is so tight and why neither side can relax. Paxton is deeply underwater on favorability: only 42 percent of likely voters viewed him favorably, while 57 percent viewed him unfavorably. Talarico’s numbers were also net negative, at 48 percent favorable and 51 percent unfavorable, but the gap between the two men was clear. A candidate whom a clear majority of voters already view unfavorably has less room to grow, and must win a larger share of voters who dislike both choices or who are voting mainly on party and issues rather than on personal appeal.

The partisan breakdown in the same poll shows both the opportunity and the limit for Talarico. Democrats were nearly unanimous, with 99 percent backing Talarico. Republicans were loyal to Paxton but not to the same degree, with 88 percent backing Paxton, 8 percent backing Talarico, 3 percent backing Brown and 1 percent undecided. Among independents, Talarico led by a wide margin, 54 percent to 38 percent for Paxton, with 6 percent for Brown. Fox News polling told a similar story nationally in miniature: Talarico ran strongly with Black voters, urban voters, younger voters and college-educated women, while Paxton ran strongly with white evangelical Christians, white men without a college degree, rural voters and voters age 65 and older. In other words, the race follows familiar geographic and cultural lines, and the winner will likely be the candidate who best turns out his strongest communities while limiting losses among persuadable voters in the suburbs.

On issues, the Cook Political Report survey added useful detail. It found that voters trusted Talarico more than Paxton on fighting corruption in Washington, on getting inflation and the cost of living under control, and on handling the economy overall, three concerns that roughly nine in 10 Texans described as important or very important. Paxton was trusted more on immigration and the border, by 49 percent to 45 percent, an issue about six in 10 voters rated as important. That split captures the closing argument each side is making. Talarico wants the final days to be about prices, schools, health care and whether voters trust Paxton. Paxton wants them to be about the border, public safety, cultural issues and whether voters trust a Democrat to represent Texas in a closely divided Senate.

Early Voting Ends as Both Campaigns Chase the Last Voters

Early voting ran from Oct. 19 through Oct. 30, and by the middle of this week more than five million Texans had already cast a ballot, a pace that analysts described as strong compared with the last midterm cycle, especially in urban and suburban counties. Campaigns and outside observers have tried to read the early vote for clues, looking at which counties are turning out, how voters with past Democratic or Republican primary histories are showing up, and where turnout is lagging. Those figures describe who has participated, not how they voted, and both parties have reasons to find encouragement in them. Democrats point to high participation in big metropolitan areas and among voters with a Democratic primary history. Republicans point to the large number of Republican-leaning voters who historically wait until Election Day and to signs that rural turnout, which started more slowly, could surge in the final days.

That rural turnout question is why Lubbock, a West Texas city in a county Trump won by a wide margin in 2024, became a focal point this week. On Tuesday, Oct. 27, Trump campaigned in Texas for Paxton with stops in Corpus Christi and Lubbock, bringing Paxton on stage, praising him as an attorney general and warning supporters not to take the race for granted. The visit was explicitly about mobilization: reminding loyal Republican voters who had not yet cast a ballot that a Senate seat, and possibly control of the chamber, could turn on whether they show up. On the same night, only a few miles away in Lubbock, Talarico held a rally of his own that his campaign said drew thousands of sign-ups and overflow crowds listening from outside. The split-screen images captured the reality of the final week: a Republican president campaigning in deep-red territory to protect his party’s base, and a Democratic challenger campaigning in that same territory to show he will compete everywhere and to keep his own supporters energized.

Republican efforts did not end with Trump. Vice President JD Vance was also dispatched to Texas late in the week, and Republican officials have publicly counted the hundreds of thousands of past Republican voters who had not yet voted as their top target for the weekend. Democratic organizers, for their part, have focused on South Texas and the big suburbs, where Hispanic voters will be decisive. Fox News found Talarico leading Paxton by 30 points among Hispanic voters, 64 percent to 34 percent, a striking shift in a group that moved toward Republicans in 2024, while other surveys have found a smaller but still significant Democratic advantage with those voters. How that group actually votes, and at what rates it turns out, may matter more than any single statewide poll average.

What happens next is straightforward, even if the result is not. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, and voters who are in line by closing time will be able to cast a ballot under Texas law. No new poll can settle a race this close; only the ballots cast during early voting, by mail where eligible, and on Election Day will do that. Both campaigns enter the weekend able to tell a plausible story about how they win. Paxton’s story rests on the Republican lean of the state, Trump’s mobilization, Election Day turnout and late movement from third-party and undecided voters. Talarico’s story rests on a consistent, if narrow, polling edge, a clear advantage with independents, a less unfavorable public image and early turnout that suggests Democratic enthusiasm is real. On Friday night, with early voting over and four days left, Texas voters hold a decision that has eluded Democrats since 1988 and that Republicans can no longer treat as automatic. USN will follow the count on Election Night as results come in from across the state.

Sources

USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from USA TODAY, FOX 26 Houston and RealClearPolling.