A new Fox News poll finds Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton 51, 48 in the Texas Senate race, a margin within the poll's error but a warning sign for a party that hasn't lost a statewide race in decades.
Paxton, who ousted 24-year incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a bitter Republican primary earlier this year, now faces a general-election landscape where more than a third of his own party's voters question whether he has the character to serve in the Senate. The Fox News survey, conducted July 23, 27 among 1,006 Texas registered voters, puts Talarico's edge at 3 points, right at the poll's ±3-point margin of sampling error. Competitive, not conclusive. But in a state Donald Trump carried by nearly 14 points in 2024, "competitive" itself is the story.
No Democrat has won a Texas Senate seat since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. No Democrat has won the governor's mansion since Ann Richards in 1990. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976. If Paxton loses, it will not be because Texas turned blue overnight. It will be because Republican voters handed Democrats an opening, and enough of them may walk through it to make the difference.
Trump endorsed Paxton on May 19, and one week later Paxton routed Cornyn in the May 26 runoff. The endorsement settled the race but fractured the coalition Paxton needs in November. Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who co-directs the Fox News poll alongside Democrat Chris Anderson, put it bluntly:
"Although Paxton dominated Cornyn in the GOP primary, that bruising contest left scars."
The numbers bear that out. Only 89 percent of Republicans say they back Paxton, a figure that sounds high until you compare it with Talarico's 98 percent support among Democrats. Nearly one in four non-MAGA Republicans tell pollsters they plan to cross over and vote for Talarico. That crossover bloc, combined with Talarico's 68 percent support among independents, accounts for most of his current advantage.
Cornyn himself warned after his defeat that Democrats would exploit Paxton's vulnerabilities. National Review reported Cornyn saying, "I think Ken Paxton's flaws and the baggage he brings to the general election are going to be exploited up to the fullest by James Talarico and by Democrats." That prediction now has polling data behind it.
The poll asked voters two parallel questions: whether they are concerned Paxton lacks the character to serve as senator, and whether they believe Talarico is too extreme. The results were lopsided. Fifty-nine percent expressed concern about Paxton's character. Only 47 percent called Talarico too extreme, a 12-point gap.
More damaging for Paxton is where the doubt lives inside his own party. Thirty-six percent of Republicans said they are concerned about his character. By contrast, only 17 percent of Democrats worried that Talarico is too extreme. Republicans are twice as likely to have reservations about their own nominee as Democrats are about theirs.
The source of those character concerns is not spelled out in the poll itself. But the backdrop is well documented: Paxton was impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House, faces securities fraud charges, and has dealt with personal scandal including an ongoing divorce tied to infidelity allegations. Voters do not need a pollster to remind them.
When Trump threw his weight behind Paxton over Cornyn, GOP senators did not hide their frustration. That frustration has not disappeared, it has migrated from Capitol Hill cloakrooms into the electorate.
Texas Republicans have long relied on superior midterm turnout to pad their margins. This cycle, the enthusiasm advantage belongs to Democrats. The Fox News poll shows Democrats leading Republicans by 7 points among voters who describe themselves as "extremely motivated" to vote and by 6 points among those "extremely interested" in the midterms.
Among those highly engaged voters, Talarico's lead widens. He carries 53 percent of extremely motivated voters to Paxton's 47 percent. The same 53, 47 split holds among extremely interested voters. If those enthusiasm numbers hold through November, Paxton cannot afford to bleed any more Republican support.
Shaw, the Republican pollster, offered Paxton a prescription:
"He has considerable work to do with non-MAGA Republicans and independents, and that undoubtedly requires aggressively tying Talarico to the Democratic Party's far left."
That strategy faces its own headwind. Talarico's personal favorability stands at 49 percent favorable versus 43 percent unfavorable, a net-positive 6 points. Paxton sits underwater at 45 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable, a net-negative 6. Defining a candidate voters already view more favorably than your own nominee is an uphill climb.
On paper, the issue landscape should favor Republicans. Nearly four in ten Texas voters named inflation as the most important issue driving their Senate vote. Immigration came next at roughly two in ten, a natural strength for the GOP in a border state. Healthcare, political divisions, and unemployment each registered around one in ten.
Financial anxiety runs deep. Thirty-five percent of voters say they are falling behind financially, compared with just 16 percent who say they are getting ahead. Roughly half say they are holding steady. That more-than-two-to-one ratio of pessimists to optimists is the kind of environment where incumbents and ruling-party candidates usually suffer, and yet Paxton, running as the party of the sitting president, has not converted that frustration into a lead.
Trump's own standing in Texas has eroded since 2024. His favorable rating among Texas registered voters has dropped from 55 percent in the 2024 Fox News Voter Analysis to 45 percent in this survey. His unfavorable rating climbed from 44 percent to 54 percent, a net swing of roughly 20 points. That decline limits the coattail effect Paxton rode through the primary.
Trump's endorsement power has reshaped Republican primaries across the country this cycle, from Georgia's Senate runoff to gubernatorial contests in multiple states. But winning a primary with Trump's base and winning a general election with the full electorate are different tasks, and the Texas numbers illustrate the gap.
The poll included an oversample of Hispanic voters, bringing the subgroup to 556 respondents with a ±4-point margin of error. The results should alarm Texas Republicans. Talarico leads Paxton among Hispanic voters by 18 points, 59 percent to 41 percent. Nine percent of Hispanic Republicans cross over to support Talarico; only 5 percent of Hispanic Democrats favor Paxton.
That gap represents a reversal from 2024, when Trump essentially split the Texas Hispanic vote with Kamala Harris, 50, 49, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. Hispanic voters now view Trump unfavorably by 61 percent, Paxton unfavorably by 56 percent, and the Republican Party unfavorably by 59 percent.
On the Democratic side, Talarico holds 57 percent favorability among Hispanic voters, and the Democratic Party sits at 53 percent favorable. Financial pressure is a factor: roughly four in ten Hispanic voters say inflation is their top issue, and a similar share say they are falling behind financially. Hispanic Democrats also report higher motivation and interest in the midterms than Hispanic Republicans.
Character concerns hit Paxton harder with Hispanic voters than with the electorate overall. Sixty-one percent of Hispanic voters say they are concerned Paxton lacks the character to serve, compared with 41 percent who consider Talarico too extreme, a 20-point margin.
The Senate race is not the only contest tightening. Gov. Greg Abbott leads Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa by just 1 point. Abbott's favorability is nearly split, 50 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable. Hinojosa, far less well known, carries 45 percent favorable and 34 percent unfavorable, with nearly one in five voters unable to rate her. Her net-positive 11-point favorability gap suggests room to grow as name recognition rises.
Ticket-splitting appears limited but real. Twelve percent of Talarico supporters say they back Abbott for governor, while 9 percent of Paxton supporters favor Hinojosa. Among extremely motivated voters, Hinojosa leads Abbott by 6 points. Among extremely interested voters, she leads by 5.
Hispanic voters back Hinojosa by 16 points, slightly wider than the 14-point margin by which they preferred Beto O'Rourke over Abbott in 2022. Abbott's unfavorable rating among Hispanic voters stands at 56 percent, mirroring Paxton's. Hinojosa carries 53 percent favorability in the same group.
Trump has intervened aggressively in Republican primaries across the Sun Belt this cycle, including a cautious approach in South Carolina's governor's runoff after setbacks elsewhere. The Texas results suggest that the general-election cost of those interventions may be steeper than the primary victories were satisfying.
Paxton runs strongest among white evangelical Christians, white men without a college degree, rural voters, regular churchgoers, men overall, and voters 65 and older. Talarico's best groups are Black voters, moderates, voters under 30, Hispanic voters, women, and college-educated voters. About eight in ten supporters on both sides say their vote is driven by where the candidates stand on issues, not by who they are as people.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties are viewed unfavorably by the overall electorate. The GOP sits at 48 percent favorable and 50 percent unfavorable. Democrats fare worse at 45 percent favorable and 54 percent unfavorable. Neither brand is an asset, which means the candidates' personal images carry more weight, and that is where Paxton's deficit bites hardest.
The poll was conducted by Beacon Research, a Democratic-affiliated firm, and Shaw & Company Research, a Republican-affiliated firm. Respondents were contacted by live interviewers on landlines and cellphones or reached online after receiving a text message. The sample was weighted by age, race, education, and geographic area using the American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and voter file data.
Republican primary voters chose the candidate Trump wanted. Now the question is whether the rest of Texas will go along, or whether the party traded a safe seat for a fight it didn't need to have.