New poll: US Senate primary races in Texas are neck and neck

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — There are five men who could conceivably win their party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Texas, according to the University of Houston-Texas Southern University’s annual Texas Trends Survey.

Allred vs. Talarico

On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred has a slim 46%-42% advantage over State Rep. James Talarico. While the results are close, it represents a huge boost for Talarico, as August polling from the Texas Politics Project found that 42% of Democrats didn’t know who he was. In this Texas Trends Survey, that number was down to 24%.

“If you’re Talarico, you have to like your position now. You’ve just launched into the race, you raised $6 million and have a larger war chest than Colin Allred has, and you can effectively use that to introduce yourself in a positive way to the one-in-four Democratic primary voters who don’t know much about you,” Mark P. Jones said. Jones is a Political Science professor at Rice University and one of the co-authors of the survey report.

On the other hand, Allred has a 95% name recognition rate amongst likely Democratic voters, after winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2024. Even if Talarico may have more room to grow, Allred is already close to gaining over 50% support from likely primary voters.

“If this race remains primarily a two-candidate race between Allred and Talarico, I think we’re looking at a pretty competitive March primary,” Jones said.

The x-factor is the potential for another candidate (or two) to enter the mix. In a hypothetical matchup between Allred, Talarico, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Crockett would lead with 31% of the vote. O’Rourke and Talarico are tied for second in the hypothetical with 25% each, while Allred brings up the rear with 13%.

“What the data shows me is that if Jasmine Crockett were to enter the race, she would immediately become the favorite to win,” Jones said. “Although it would be quite likely that if Allred and Talarico remained in the race, that it would go to a May runoff.”

Cornyn vs. Paxton vs. Hunt

On the other side of the aisle, incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn has been fighting for his political life and now has to contend with a second serious challenger. Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have been going back and forth since Paxton declared his campaign in April. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt entered the race after months of speculation.

In the Texas Trends Survey, Paxton slightly led Cornyn 34%-33%, with Hunt coming in at 22%. However, the entirety of the poll was conducted between Sept. 19 and Oct. 1, before Hunt announced his candidacy.

“And this was before I announced,” Hunt wrote on social media Thursday. “We’re just getting started.”

While Paxton adviser Nick Maddux told the Texas Tribune, “we welcome Wesley Hunt to the race,” Cornyn’s team had stronger words.

“Hunt is a legend in his own mind,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in a statement. “No one is happier this morning than the national Democrats who are watching Wesley continue his quixotic quest for relevancy, costing tens of millions of dollars that will endanger the Trump agenda from being passed.”

“Hunt’s entry into the race really complicates things for Cornyn,” Jones said. “His strategy was to win in [the] March [primary], where you have a broader, more diverse and potentially more moderate on average Republican primary electorate.”

If no candidate can garner 50% of the vote, the top two would go into a runoff, where Jones says the electorate is less favorable to Cornyn.