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Texas Governor Greg Abbott got some welcome news on Thursday in his reelection bid after two recent polls showed his Democratic challenger narrowly ahead.
A UMass Lowell/YouGov survey of 850 likely Texas voters found Abbott leading Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa 48 percent to 44 percent. Six percent were undecided, and 1 percent backed Libertarian Pat Dixon. The poll was conducted September 18-28 and carries an adjusted margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, so Abbott’s lead is within the margin.
The result follows two polls that gave Hinojosa the edge. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday had her ahead by 3 points, which was within that poll’s margin of error. A separate YouGov survey of 3,622 likely voters, fielded September 28-October 5, put Hinojosa up 48 percent to 47 percent.
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UMass Lowell finished its fieldwork before either of those polls did.
Newsweek reached out to the Abbott and Hinojosa campaigns for comment Thursday.
Eduardo Leal, a spokesperson for the Abbott campaign, told Newsweek in an email on Thursday: "We don't comment on polls, but we know that Governor Abbott's vision will beat high-tax Hinojosa."
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Abbott Runs Ahead of Paxton With Independents
The UMass Lowell poll found Texas’ U.S. Senate race tied. Democratic state Representative James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton each drew 45 percent, with 7 percent undecided.
Abbott does better than Paxton with the voters likely to settle both races. He wins 26 percent of independents, compared with 18 percent for Paxton. Among Texans who backed a third-party candidate or skipped the 2024 presidential election, Abbott takes 35 percent and Paxton's 26 percent.
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His supporters also appear settled. Ninety-five percent of Abbott voters said they would definitely vote for him, compared with 93 percent of Hinojosa’s backers.
“The last time Democrats won a U.S. Senate race in Texas [Lloyd Bentsen in 1988], Ken Paxton didn’t yet have a law degree and James Talarico wasn’t even born," said John Cluverius, director of survey research for UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion. "With the race tied, anything can happen between now and the election. Neither of the premier statewide races has a clear leader. Texas, a once-reliable rock, is starting to show some cracks.”
Where Hinojosa Has the Edge
Hinojosa leads independents 39 percent to 26 percent, but 21 percent of them remain undecided. She also leads among women, 47 percent to 44 percent, and among voters under 30, 46 percent to 40 percent.
Black voters back her 61 percent to 23 percent, and Hispanic voters favor her 51 percent to 43 percent. College graduates support Hinojosa 52 percent to 42 percent.
Abbott’s coalition is older and whiter. He wins voters 65 and older 59 percent to 37 percent, white voters 56 percent to 35 percent and voters without a four-year degree 51 percent to 38 percent. Men favor him by 12 points.
Many voters are still getting to know the Democrat. Forty percent view Hinojosa favorably and 33 percent unfavorably, while 26 percent either had no opinion or had never heard of her. Abbott’s favorability stands at 48 percent, with 43 percent viewing him unfavorably.
Turnout could decide it. The groups carrying Hinojosa in the YouGov poll, younger voters and Hispanic voters, tend to skip midterm elections at higher rates than the older white Texans who make up Abbott's base. And the governor has the money to stay on television through the final stretch.
Costs and Trump Weigh on Republicans
The poll also found some warning signs for Abbott. His job approval is 52 percent, down from 56 percent in UMass Lowell’s October 2020 Texas poll. President Donald Trump’s approval is 47 percent, and 53 percent disapprove.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track. Fifty-six percent said paying for basics like housing, food and medical care has become harder over the past six months.
Voters blamed Washington for energy costs. Seventy-two percent named the Iran war as the main reason for higher fuel and utility prices, and 11 percent pointed to tariffs. Sixty-nine percent said the U.S. is spending too much on the war.
“When voters connect rising costs at home with specific government policies, those concerns can become politically consequential, potentially punishing the party in power,” said Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, the center’s associate director.
AI data centers came up as another pressure point. Sixty-five percent oppose building one in their own community, and 56 percent support a statewide ban on building or expanding data centers in Texas. A September ReconMR/Siena poll found that voters preferred Hinojosa to Abbott on managing data center construction, 45 percent to 42 percent.
What Earlier Polls Show
Pollsters have traded leads all fall. A year ago, few Texas Republicans would have predicted that Abbott, who has won each of his three races for governor by double digits, would be scrapping for votes less than four weeks before Election Day.
Recent surveys, however, suggest that the race has become a true toss-up. A YouGov poll of 3,622 likely voters, conducted September 28-October 5, found Hinojosa narrowly ahead 48 percent to 47 percent, with 5 percent undecided. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The shift is especially striking compared with polling earlier this year.
In June, a New York Times/Siena College poll of 656 likely voters found Abbott leading 51 percent to 44 percent. But when the Times/Siena returned to the field September 21-30, Hinojosa had moved ahead 49 percent to 46 percent among 615 likely voters. A Marist University survey September 17-20 among 1,139 registered voters produced the same 49-46 result.
Other recent polls point to a similar reversal. ReconMR and the Siena Research Institute found Hinojosa leading 49 percent to 45 percent, a turnaround from July, when the same poll had Abbott ahead by a point.
Not every survey shows Hinojosa in front, however. A Fox News poll conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research from September 24-28 put Abbott ahead 52 percent to 47 percent among 881 likely voters. Big Data Poll and Slingshot Strategies also showed the governor with mid-single-digit leads, as did a Stratus Intelligence survey commissioned by the Republican group Texans for a Conservative Majority.
Between those competing findings are polls showing an essentially deadlocked race. An N+ Univision/YouGov survey found both candidates at 47 percent, while an Overton Insights/Texas Public Policy Foundation poll gave Abbott an edge, 46.9 percent to 45.8 percent.
The contrast from the summer is stark. Abbott led by 7 points in a University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll in early June, and a late-July Texas Southern University survey found him ahead 49 percent to 43 percent. No public poll since mid-September has shown him leading by more than 5 points.
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Blue Texas? It Might Happen
Hinojosa's fate may be tied to Talarico's. A Senate race that drives Democratic-leaning voters to the polls would help her more than anything her own campaign can buy.
Democrats have been promising a breakthrough in Texas for three decades. No Democrat has won statewide office there since 1994 [Kay Hutchison, U.S. Senate], and Trump carried the state by 13 points in 2024. Abbott beat Beto O'Rourke by roughly 11 points in 2022.
Hinojosa is a different kind of candidate than O'Rourke. A civil rights and union lawyer who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, she made her name in the Texas House as the chief antagonist of Abbott's school voucher push, and her campaign has since widened its focus to grocery bills, data centers and what she calls corruption in the governor's office.
"Every poll tells the same story: Texans are tired of working more and getting less," Hinojosa said during the summer.
Her numbers among Hispanic voters, a group that shifted sharply toward Republicans in 2024, could prove decisive. Mike Madrid, a longtime Latino political strategist, said many analysts in Washington misread the results of that election.
"Most people were thinking it was part of this permanent realignment. A lot of people who understand the Latino vote were saying it's not that at all," Madrid told Newsweek.
Independents are also drifting her way, according to ReconMR, which found her with large leads in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio and Abbott ahead in rural areas.
Abbott keeps the upper hand on the issues Republicans have run on for a decade. On securing the border, voters picked him over Hinojosa 53 percent to 39 percent, and he led on keeping Texans safe, while she led on making prices more affordable.
He also has far more money. At the end of June, Abbott had about $67 million on hand to Hinojosa's $3 million, though she has said her campaign raised $20 million since January.
What Happens Next
Abbott’s campaign has publicly brushed off the tight numbers. His top strategist called one recent poll showing Hinojosa ahead by 3 points “bogus,” and Abbott has said his internal polling looks different.
He still has a major financial advantage, although it has narrowed. Abbott outspent Hinojosa 6-to-1 from July to late September. He ended the reporting period with $18.2 million on hand, compared with Hinojosa’s $4 million, after starting the year with more than $105 million. More than 70 Latino Democratic leaders have urged the Democratic Governors Association to put $10 million into the race.
Hinojosa has accepted an October 15 debate in Fort Worth. Her campaign said Abbott let the deadline pass. Early voting runs October 19-30 and Election Day is November 3.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff.
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