Democrat James Talarico is currently outpacing Republican Ken Paxton in recent polling for the Texas U.S. senate race. New data suggests Talarico is successfully peeling away a portion of the Trump electorate in this traditionally Republican state.
The 15% crossover from Trump voters
James Talarico is demonstrating an ability to appeal to voters outside his traditional party base. According to a Big Data Poll released on Monday, Talarico has secured the support of 15% of voters who backed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. This is a significant figure in a state where Donald Trump won by a 13.7 percentage point margin in 2024.
This trend of bipartisan appeal is not isolated to a single survey. A SoCal Strategies poll of 649 likely Texas voters also found Talarico maintaining 14% support among those who voted for Trump. while Ken Paxton remains the standard-bearer for the Republican side, the report says he only holds the backing of 4.3% of voters who supported Kamala Harris, highlighting a sharp divide in how the two candidates are perceived by the opposing party's base.
A massive reversal on Polymarket and Kalshi
Prediction markets have undergone a dramatic shift in favor of the Democratic candidate. Polymarket currently gives James Talarico a 61% chance of victory, compared to a 40% chance for Ken Paxton. This represents a significant swing from July 28, when the markets showed Paxton as the frontrunner with a 56% chance of winning.
The sentiment is mirrored on the Kalshi platform, where Talarico is currently sitting at 59% against Paxton's 41%. This reversal is notable because it follows a period where Paxton held the advantage in nearly all predictive modeling. These shifts suggest that as the election nears, the momentum in the Texas Senate race is moving steadily toward the Democratic challenger.
Ken Paxton's struggle with Republican credibility
Ken Paxton’s performance among certain Republican factions appears to be a drag on his campaign. The report notes that Paxton performs significantly worse with 2024 Harris voters than Texas Governor Greg Abbott does. While Abbott maintains support from 89% of Trump voters, Paxton’s standing is complicated by his own controversial history within the state.
Paxton’s poliical standing was shaken in 2023 when he was impeached by the GOP-controlled Texas House on allegations regarding abuse of public trust , though he was ultimately acquitted by the state Senate. Furthermore, his victory in the May primary runoff against incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn was met with resistance from within his own party. Cornyn has been a vocal critic, famously describing Paxton as a "known con man and fraud" and stating he would not campaign for him in the general election.
The impact of Talarico's 2021 religious comments
While Talarico holds a lead in several polls, including a Texas Public Opinion Research survey showing him ahead by five points, his past rhetoric remains a potential vulnerability. In 2021, Talarico made controversial remarks during a Texas House speech, suggesting that God is nonbinary and encompasses both masculine and feminie traits.
It remains to be seen if these theological statements will alienate the religious conservative demographic that typically defines Texas politics.. While the source does not provide specific polling data on how voters react to his "Christian who hates Christianity" comment from the Active Theology podcast, the question of whether his social views will offset his gains among Trump voters remains the central unknown of the race.
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