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By Sam Stevenson
Associate News Editor
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Democrat James Talarico has established a narrow but consistent polling advantage over Republican Ken Paxton. It places a U.S. Senate victory in Texas closer to his party’s reach than it was at the same stage of Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign.
But polling leads alone do not solve the problem that has plagued every recent Democratic statewide candidate in Texas: turning a younger and more diverse potential coalition into an electorate that actually votes.
Understanding whether Talarico can overcome that problem requires more than comparing poll numbers.
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"Most of the elements are falling into place for Democrats, but without an actual victory under their belt, it’s hard to imagine how it actually happens," Joshua M. Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek in a phone call.
"I think the thing that we’re really watching at this point is Republican enthusiasm numbers."
The candidates, their opponents, and the political circumstances surrounding the 2018 and 2026 races are substantially different.
O’Rourke, a former El Paso city council member and three-term U.S. representative, became a national Democratic figure when he challenged Republican Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.
He later sought the Democratic presidential nomination and ran unsuccessfully for Texas governor.
Talarico is a former public-school teacher who was first elected to the Texas House in 2018 and now represents District 50.
Paxton, meanwhile, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, is Texas’ attorney general, an office he has held since 2015 after serving in both chambers of the state legislature.
His tenure has also been defined by major legal and ethical controversies.
In May 2023, the Texas House adopted 20 articles of impeachment against him.
The Texas Senate later tried 16 articles and acquitted him, allowing him to return to office.
All this makes the 2026 contest a different electoral test from 2018.
O’Rourke nearly defeated an incumbent Republican senator in a state where Democrats had repeatedly lost statewide; Talarico is seeking the same breakthrough against a Republican whose personal ratings and record may make the contest less reflective of Texas’ usual partisan balance.
Where Polls Stand Now
The RealClearPolitics (RCP) average places Talarico at 48.4 percent and Paxton at 45.3 percent, a 3.1-point Democratic advantage across surveys conducted from September 12 to October 5. Its five newest listed polls put Talarico ahead by between one and six points.
The newest, conducted by YouGov from September 28 to October 5, found Talarico leading 50 percent to 44 percent among 3,625 likely voters, with a three-point margin of error.
A New York Times/Siena College survey also produced a six-point margin, while Fox News found a two-point race.
That makes the central question larger than whether Talarico resembles O’Rourke.
It is whether turnout, Republican defections, and unprecedented campaign resources can produce an electorate different enough from Texas’ recent voting history to capture the white whale of Democratic political ambition: a U.S. Senate victory in the Lone Star State on November 3.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a political-science professor at the University of Houston, said candidate favorability can pull a contest away from its normal partisan baseline.
"Texas remains structurally Republican, so a Senate contest polling around even, or with the Democrat slightly ahead, suggests that candidate-specific factors may be overriding some normal partisan voting," Rottinghaus told Newsweek in emailed comments.
"The important question is whether those voters actually cross party lines or simply stay home."
Newsweek contacted the Talarico and Paxton campaigns, O’Rourke, and strategists from both parties via email, phone call, and WhatsApp for comment on Tuesday and is awaiting responses.
What Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Loss Really Shows
The comparison with O’Rourke is unavoidable, but it is not a forecast.
O’Rourke entered the 2018 contest as a Democratic congressman challenging Cruz, a nationally prominent Republican incumbent, in a state where Democrats had repeatedly failed to win statewide office.
What followed became an unusually competitive contest, driven by intense Democratic enthusiasm and a campaign that built national attention while organizing across Texas.
A Republican strategist familiar with Texas politics, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the race, told Newsweek that O’Rourke’s campaign generated a level of visible activity inside the state that Talarico had yet to replicate.
"The actual on-the-ground excitement for him was way stronger," the strategist said of O’Rourke. The source added that national television appearances and social-media audiences were not substitutes for field organizing and direct contact with Texas voters.
The precise contribution of enthusiasm, organizing, late voter movement and polling methodology cannot be isolated from the final result alone.
What can be established is that the race became far closer than Texas’ recent electoral history would have suggested.
According to the Texas Secretary of State’s official canvass, Republican Ted Cruz received 4,260,553 votes, or 50.89 percent, in 2018. O’Rourke received 4,045,632, or 48.33 percent. Cruz won by 214,921 votes, equivalent to 2.57 percentage points.
The final RCP average showed Cruz leading by 6.8 points. The certified result was therefore about 4.2 points closer than the polling average indicated.
"Cruz ultimately beat O’Rourke by 2.6 points in 2018; that election tells us that Texas can produce a very close Senate race, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us how voters who dislike Paxton will behave in a more polarized political environment," Rottinghaus said.
Nor do the public figures establish why the 2018 polls overstated Cruz’s margin.
Sampling, weighting, turnout assumptions, late movement and the allocation of undecided voters could all have contributed.
The useful lesson is narrower: O’Rourke lost, but he did not underperform the final polling average.
Talarico begins from a stronger polling position, although his lead remains small enough for an ordinary polling miss to reverse it.
Why the 2026 Race Is Different
The clearest difference is the Republican opponent.
Talarico is running against Paxton, whose candidacy follows an impeachment, acquittal, and years of controversy, rather than against an incumbent senator such as Cruz.
Fox News measured Talarico at 52 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable.
Paxton was viewed favorably by 40 percent and unfavorably by 58 percent. Almost one-third of Republicans viewed Paxton unfavorably.
The same survey found Talarico supported by 20 percent of likely voters who backed John Cornyn in the Republican primary and by 22 percent of non-MAGA Republicans. Those findings show measurable crossover, but not whether it will survive Election Day.
The Republican strategist familiar with Texas politics predicted that Cornyn voters would ultimately return to the GOP nominee.
"They might have supported Cornyn, but at the end of the day, they’re still Republicans," the GOP insider said. "They’re not going to massively go vote for Democrats just because Cornyn is not on the ballot."
The Fox poll shows crossover when respondents were interviewed, while the strategist argues much of it will dissipate.
Rottinghaus described the movement as potential "candidate defection rather than partisan conversion."
The better test of political change, he said, would be Paxton’s performance against other Republicans on the ballot.
"A large gap would be stronger evidence of a Paxton-specific problem than of Texas undergoing a wholesale partisan realignment," Rottinghaus said.
The latest YouGov poll offers another reason to focus on turnout rather than mass persuasion. Ninety-seven percent of Talarico supporters said their minds were made up, as did 96 percent of Paxton supporters.
A September Marist poll captured another tension in the race: voters’ expectations remain more Republican than their stated preferences.
The survey found Talarico leading Paxton by 50 percent to 44 percent among 1,139 registered voters, yet 52 percent of respondents said they expected Paxton to win regardless of whom they personally supported.
The six-point preference for Talarico, combined with an eight-point expectation that Paxton will prevail, suggests that many voters still view the Republican as the likelier winner despite the Democrat’s polling advantage.
That may reflect Texas’ long record of Republican statewide victories rather than a prediction based solely on the current campaign.
The Marist survey was conducted from September 17 to 20 using live telephone interviews, text messages and online responses. Its registered-voter sample had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
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Turnout Is the Central Uncertainty
Fox’s poll provides the strongest demonstration of how participation assumptions affect the race.
Talarico led by seven points among 1,203 registered voters but by two points among the poll’s 881 likely voters. The likely-voter result, 51 percent to 49 percent, had a three-point margin of error.
That five-point change does not mean particular voters simply disappeared.
Fox used a probabilistic model incorporating voting history, interest in the election, intention to vote and demographic information. Respondents could receive different probabilities or statistical weights.
Blank said likely-voter models must balance past behavior against stated intention.
Heavy reliance on voting history risks missing new or irregular participants; relying too heavily on what respondents say risks including people who ultimately stay home.
"You end up losing voters who are less reliable, whether because of their past voting history or because of the certainty with which they’re going to cast a ballot," Blank said.
The resulting electorate, he added, tends to be "older, whiter and more conservative" than the broader registered-voter population.
That matters because Talarico’s strongest groups include voters with historically inconsistent participation.
YouGov found him receiving 69 percent among likely voters aged 18 to 29 and 62 percent among those aged 30 to 44, compared with 38 percent among voters aged 65 or older.
It placed him at 83 percent among Black voters and 61 percent among Hispanic voters. Paxton led among White voters, 55 percent to 39 percent.
"For Democrats to be competitive, they not only need to turn out all of their base voters, but they need to see a surge in engagement among less traditional Democratic-leaning voters," Blank said.
Making lower-propensity voters more likely to participate is therefore "a necessary, though not sufficient condition" for a Talarico victory, he added.
Money Does Not Eliminate the Turnout Problem
Talarico holds a large advantage in candidate-controlled money.
Federal Election Commission figures covering reports through June 30 show $68.6 million in receipts for Talarico and $9.25 million for Paxton.
Talarico reported $21.55 million in cash on hand, compared with $1.76 million for Paxton.
Those figures should not be combined with independent expenditures.
Texas PAC, an outside group supporting Paxton, reported approximately $131 million in expenditures in filings made between September 13 and 30, according to FEC filings reviewed by Newsweek.
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That money is legally separate from Paxton’s committee and cannot be treated as money he raised or controlled.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) argued that the outside spending was helping Paxton at a pivotal stage of the campaign.
"The cavalry has arrived for Ken Paxton, and he is surging at the perfect time as we enter the closing stretch," Zach Kraft, an RNC spokesman, told Newsweek in an emailed statement. "The more Texans learn about James Talarico, the more they realize they want nothing to do with him."
Blank said the more important question is what that advertising accomplishes.
"There is a buckshot approach that is very expensive right now," he said. "The question isn’t so much, does it hurt Talarico, but does it reengage Republican voters who’ve been less engaged than the party would like?"
That returns the race to its central uncertainty.
Talarico has a polling lead, extensive resources, and evidence of Republican crossover.
Paxton retains the advantage of running as the Republican nominee in a state that remains structurally favorable to his party.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and James Debens
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