Key takeaways from the Texas primary
Texas Sen. John Cornyn lost the Republican primary for U.S. Senate to the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, who supported Trump.
Nearly a month after clinching the Republican nomination in a tight primary race against Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has a narrow lead over his Democratic challenger in the U.S. Senate race, according to a new poll.
The November general election is still months away, but a new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll released Tuesday shows Paxton leading Democratic Texas Rep. James Talarico (43% to 42%) by several percentage points.
The new poll results also come after a previous poll by Texas Poll showed Paxton trailing Talarico in late May despite winning the Republican primary runoff, with Paxton winning the support of President Donald Trump and securing 63% of the vote for Cornyn.
Internal poll numbers show how each party’s support base is strengthening.
Republicans rally behind Paxton as Senate race remains close
The poll, conducted among 1,200 self-reported registered voters from June 5 to 12, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 percentage points, or a weighted adjustment of 3.47 percentage points.
In the Texas Politics Project’s last poll, conducted in April, only 63% of Republicans said they would support Paxton in a hypothetical matchup with Talarico. But a June poll found that 84% of Republicans said they would support Paxton if the election were held today.
The poll also found that 5% of Republicans support Talarico, 2% support Libertarian candidate Ted Brown, another 2% support an unspecified “someone else,” and 7% have no opinion.
Among Democrats, 88% support Talarico, 1% support Paxton, 3% choose the Libertarian candidate, 2% choose “someone else” and 6% have no opinion.
Independents, who made up 9% of the weighted poll sample, supported the Democratic candidate by a wide margin.
- 40% chose Talarico.
- 12% preferred Paxton.
- Seven percent said they would support a Libertarian candidate.
- 8% said they would vote for “someone else.”
- So far, 34% of independent voters have no opinion about the contest.
Mateo Rosiles is a Texas Connect reporter for USA TODAY and local Texas newspapers. Do you have any news tips for him? Email us at mrosiles@usatodayco.com.
