A new Texas poll shows state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin) with a narrow lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, while Republican Bo French remains slightly ahead in the race for Railroad Commission despite a sharp drop in his favorability.
The poll from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University found Talarico leading Paxton 47 percent to 46 percent. Libertarian Ted Brown received 3 percent, while 4 percent of likely voters remained undecided.
The survey of 1,800 likely Texas voters was conducted Sept. 11-18 and has a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points.
Talarico had near-unanimous support among Democrats, with 99 percent saying they planned to vote for him. Paxton received support from 84 percent of Republicans, while 7 percent backed Talarico, 4 percent supported Brown and 5 percent were undecided.
The poll also found significant differences along racial and ethnic lines. Paxton led Talarico among white likely voters by 19 percentage points, while Talarico led among Latino voters by 19 points and Black voters by 77 points.
Among voters supporting Gov. Greg Abbott, 93 percent said they planned to vote for Paxton, while 2 percent backed Talarico, 2 percent supported Brown and 3 percent were undecided.
Abbott, meanwhile, led state Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) 49 percent to 45 percent in the governor’s race. Libertarian Pat Dixon received 2 percent.
French remains ahead as favorability falls
The poll also provides a new look at the race for Texas Railroad Commission following controversy involving Republican candidate Bo French.
French led state Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston) 44 percent to 42 percent, a 1-point change from a TSU poll conducted in July.
But the larger movement came in how voters viewed French.
In late July, 67 percent of voters said they did not know enough about French to have an opinion. At the time, 19 percent viewed him favorably and 14 percent viewed him unfavorably, giving him a net favorability rating of plus 5.
Seven weeks later, the percentage of voters who did not know enough about French to form an opinion had dropped 21 points. His favorable rating increased slightly to 22 percent, but his unfavorable rating jumped to 32 percent, leaving him with a net favorability of minus 10.
The September survey was conducted after French attracted national media attention over a social media post featuring University of Texas at Austin students and commentary suggesting the university was prioritizing foreigners over Texans.
Pollster Mark Jones told The Texan that although voter intentions in the Railroad Commission contest had not changed dramatically between the two surveys, awareness of French had increased substantially.
“What they learned they didn’t like,” Jones said.
“The most likely scenario is that the principal driver of dramatically greater voter awareness of Bo French was that tweet and its ensuing media coverage, and the reaction to that tweet has been far more negative than positive,” Jones added.
Rosenthal, however, remains largely unknown to voters.
“One silver lining for French is that 76 percent of likely voters still don’t know anything about Rosenthal,” Jones said.
The poll also suggests some Republican voters supporting the party’s candidates in other statewide races are not automatically backing French. Among Paxton supporters, 91 percent said they planned to vote for French, while 87 percent of Abbott supporters said the same.
Republicans lead several other statewide contests
In other statewide races tested by TSU, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick led state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin) by 6 percentage points.
State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) held a 5-point advantage over state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) in the attorney general race, while Republican Nate Sheets led Democrat Clayton Tucker by 6 points for agriculture commissioner.
Republican Don Huffines led state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin) by 8 points in the comptroller race, while incumbent Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham held an 8-point lead over Democrat Benjamin Flores.
Jones said Huffines had the highest favorability rating among the 16 statewide candidates included in the survey.
“He is pretty well-known for a second-tier race,” Jones said. “His advertising is focused on auditing government and protecting taxpayer dollars, things that people tend to like.”
The TSU poll used a considerably larger sample than some other recent surveys of Texas voters. Jones said the 1,800-voter sample was intended in part to provide more reliable information about demographic groups that can be difficult to analyze using smaller surveys.
“One of the reasons we did such a large sample size of 1,800 voters was so that we can get a more accurate read of those subgroups,” Jones said.
The survey also measured likely voters’ views of President Donald Trump. Among Texans likely to vote in the November 2026 election, 46 percent viewed Trump favorably and 53 percent viewed him unfavorably.
