AUSTIN — In a state with a lot more Republicans than Democrats, the Texas Senate race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico has been reduced to a plain question: who actually shows up. Early voting opens Monday, and the latest CBS News poll calls the contest essentially tied.
Talarico, a Democratic state representative, leads Paxton, the Republican attorney general, 51 percent to 49 among likely voters in the CBS News/YouGov survey, a gap inside its 3.5-point margin of error. The same pollster’s Battleground Tracker poll put Democrats at 228 House seats in September, so Texas is now being measured against a national mood that has already moved.
Turnout is where it could break. Among registered voters, 87 percent of Democrats said they will definitely vote, against 77 percent of independents and 76 percent of Republicans. Among likely voters, Talarico holds 99 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents, but just 5 percent of Republicans. The poll’s authors wrote that the picture “could certainly change” if more Republicans decide to vote.
Prices are what carry Talarico. CBS News reported that 56 percent of likely voters named the cost of living as the most important issue in their Senate vote, and those voters back Talarico 65 percent to 35, on a subgroup margin of 4.6 points. Gasoline is a large part of that grievance, accounting for more than half of the 0.6 percent monthly rise in September CPI inflation, which stood at 3.7 percent over twelve months.
Paxton’s advantages are structural. Among Texas registered voters, 54 percent approve of the Trump administration’s deportation program, against 50 percent in CBS’s national poll of Oct. 4, and 41 percent of his likely voters said the main reason they back him is that he is the Republican nominee. Nearly half of voters call Talarico “very liberal,” and 84 percent of those voters choose Paxton. CBS found much of his Republican support is an effort to back Trump, even as Trump’s approval has fallen to a record low of 33 percent in a new national survey.
CBS News Texas reported that Talarico’s campaign says it raised $64 million in the third quarter, a Senate record for that period, against Paxton’s $18 million, while Ad Impact Politics counts Republican ad spending above $368 million to Democrats’ $132 million, a tally that includes primaries and future bookings. The Texas Secretary of State announced a record 19,041,684 registered voters, and early voting runs through Oct. 30.
The poll cannot say whether Republicans who sounded less certain will arrive late or stay home, and the published summary does not say whether third-party candidates were offered in the 51-49 head-to-head. Governor Greg Abbott leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa 52 percent to 48 among likely voters and takes 7 percent of Talarico’s voters, which raises a question nobody can yet answer: how many Texans will vote for both of them?
