Three Rating Changes in Texas, All Towards Democrats

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— The open Texas Senate race moves to Toss-up, as state Rep. James Talarico (D) leads in polls more often than not against state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who will need a rescue operation from national Republicans.

— Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), though much better-positioned than Paxton, is no longer in a completely Safe Republican race.

— As strange as it may seem, Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s (R, TX-15) reelection bid in a Trump +18 district now appears to be a genuine Toss-up.

Table 1: Crystal Ball Senate rating change

Table 2: Crystal Ball House rating change

Table 3: Crystal Ball gubernatorial rating change

Revisiting ratings in Texas

In yesterday’s runoffs, two candidates that had Donald Trump’s endorsement prevailed in key primaries. In South Carolina, appointed Sen. Darline Graham (R), overcame what was widely seen as a poor debate performance last week to defeat Rep. Ralph Norman (R, SC-5) in a runoff by a 5-point margin. Aside from holding her base from the first round, which was in the Columbia area, Graham cleaned up in the Charleston and Myrtle Beach metros, where some of her primary opponents hailed from. Only Upstate South Carolina, long an anti-Graham hotbed in primaries, broke for Norman.

In Oklahoma, former state Sen. Mike Mazzei defeated state Attorney General Gentner Drummond by about half a percentage point in a GOP runoff for Oklahoma’s open-seat gubernatorial race. Drummond, who could be called the more moderate candidate, won the state’s two most populous counties, Oklahoma and Tulsa, but his thin margins there were cancelled out by Mazzei’s strength in eastern Oklahoma’s Little Dixie. As with South Carolina’s Senate race, we rate this as a Safe Republican contest for the general election.

But going south of Oklahoma, we are taking a fresh look at Texas today, where another candidate who won a runoff with Trump’s backing is in a much more competitive race.

Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton emerging from the Republican runoff was hardly a scenario that national GOP strategists were enthusiastic about, and the general election campaign he’s run has done little to dispel the concerns some in his party had long harbored.

Meanwhile, state Rep. James Talarico (D) of the Austin area has emerged as one of the Democrats’ most closely watched candidates nationally after winning a competitive March primary. Talarico is doing something that then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D), whose showing represents a modern high-water mark for state Democrats, didn’t manage against Ted Cruz in 2018: posting regular polling leads. Talarico has led Paxton in most public polls this summer, although he typically doesn’t clear 50% of the vote. One of the better nonpartisan public polls for Paxton was from Emerson College earlier this month, where he was nominally leading Talarico 47%-46%. O’Rourke trailed in almost every poll yet finished within 3 points of Cruz, suggesting that Talarico might be better positioned now than O’Rourke was at this point in 2018.

Of course, Texas is a steep climb for any Democrat. Many undecided voters may ultimately hold their noses for and vote for Paxton, as they have similarly “come home” for other, less flawed Republicans in previous cycles. But Paxton’s favorability has been underwater in nearly every survey, and he’s underperforming his own party’s base support in several polls. NOTUS’s Paul Kane also recently wrote that in 2006, when Democrats ultimately flipped the Senate by a narrow margin, the presence of third-party candidates allowed several Democratic Senate candidates to win in red states with less than 50% of the vote. Aside from Paxton and Talarico, there will be a Libertarian on the Texas ballot, so it is possible that the eventual winner of this race may get by with a plurality.

There’s also the matter of outside help that hasn’t fully materialized yet. National Republican money—the sort of cavalry that has bailed out shaky nominees in other states—has been slower to arrive for Paxton, who has badly trailed Talarico in candidate-to-candidate fundraising. Part of that may reflect whatever lingering resentments some in the party may hold still towards Paxton after he ousted Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX); some of it may simply be GOP resources being sent to states that are higher priority or less expensive. Either way, national Republicans will need to pour in tens of millions down the stretch—who does it, when it happens, and what it changes represent the biggest questions in this race. Talarico, who has positioned himself as a moderate, has vulnerabilities based on his own past statements during what is now being dubbed as “Peak Woke” or “Woke 1.0,” when Democrats made statements on cultural issues that are now political liabilities.

Talarico’s campaign reported a record-setting $30 million quarterly haul in July, putting him well ahead of Paxton’s fundraising. The volume has been large enough to create its own headaches: his campaign has had to issue more than $800,000 in refunds to donors who exceeded federal contribution limits.

So, the Texas Senate race features a flawed Republican, a well-funded Democrat, and a national environment that could be as favorable to Democrats as what 2018’s was—or, perhaps more so. Putting these pieces together, we’re moving Texas Senate from Leans Republican to Toss-up. We really thought we’d keep this race at Leans Republican through November, but with the election still a couple of months away, we think there’s enough uncertainty to call it a Toss-up for now.

One potential parallel for this race that a smart Republican observer suggested to us was Tennessee’s 2006 Senate race. In 2004, Tennessee voted about 12 points right of the national popular vote for president. As a senior Republican, in that case GOP Majority Leader Bill Frist (R), stuck to a term limits pledge and retired, Republicans held the open seat by a little less than 3 points (the only truly competitive race that Republicans salvaged in 2006). In 2024, Texas also voted a dozen points right of the national popular vote, and Republicans are defending it as an open seat, as one of their long-serving members was involuntarily retired. Paxton is a much weaker candidate than then-former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R), the eventual winner, was, although then-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D, TN-9) was also a more ideologically moderate candidate than Talarico is.

In any case, moving down the ballot to other statewide races, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is seeking an unprecedented fourth term, and he remains the likely winner against Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Abbott has a huge war chest, a favorability rating still in positive territory, and none of the obvious personal or legal complications that have dogged Paxton.

Still, several data points suggest that Abbott might not win as comfortably as he did in his past campaigns. His favorability numbers have softened considerably from earlier in his tenure, and multiple recent polls have shown a single-digit race—in 2014, he won the governorship by 20 points, while his margins in his next two races hovered around a dozen percentage points. Abbott’s financial advantage could ultimately widen his margin, and we still expect him to win. But it has also been harder to justify a Safe Republican rating there.

One potentially important issue is the growing backlash against data centers, particularly in rural Texas. Abbott once enthusiastically promoted the industry, calling Texas the “epicenter” of AI development and touting Google’s $40 billion investment. But amid mounting concerns about water use, electricity costs, and the impact on rural communities (and amidst a rapid, national backlash against data centers), he has since moved sharply in the other direction, calling for restrictions on data centers in rural neighborhoods and ordering a statewide audit that has paused some projects. Hinojosa’s criticism of data centers has been an integral part of her campaign.

A similar tension is emerging around the border. Abbott has always positioned himself as a firm supporter of border security, but the Trump administration’s plans for new infrastructure in the Big Bend region have put him in a more complicated position. After bulldozers began clearing land in Big Bend National Park, Abbott said he had intervened with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and secured assurances that no wall or fence would be built in the park. The episode is notable because opposition to the border infrastructure didn’t come exclusively from Democrats or environmental groups: some West Texas sheriffs, landowners, and Republican officials have also questioned the need for new barriers in a scenic area that accounts for a very small share of border crossings. As with the data center fight, Abbott had to navigate tensions within his own coalition rather than simply rallying Republicans against Democrats.

There could also be a bit of a structural factor at play: Abbott might be “wearing out his welcome” to some degree by seeking a fourth four-year term. The incumbency fatigue by itself probably wouldn’t be the race’s decisive factor, although it could be contributing to a closer-than-usual result. Although the races aren’t perfectly comparable, we’d flag a similar dynamic playing out with Gov. Phil Scott (R) in Vermont, who is seeking a sixth two-year term. In the two public polls that we have of the race, from the University of New Hampshire, he clearly leads his Democratic opponent, Amanda Janoo, but his vote share is in the low-40s—in his three most recent reelection races, he has won roughly 70% of the vote. In UNH’s more recent poll, Scott’s approval rating is only slightly positive. In both cases, a long-serving governor still looks like the favorite, but they could both be in for closer-than-usual reelection wins.

Accordingly, we’re moving Texas Governor from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.

If Democrats were to win a statewide race in Texas, or even come reasonably close, one of the several factors that would have to align for them would probably be the state’s Latino vote snapping back to them. While the movements in Latino precincts in places like Houston and Dallas will probably be consequential, the three “classic” South Texas U.S. House seats may also tell a story on this front.

Democrats are entering the election with 2 of the 3 South Texas seats. Despite a Republican-driven redistricting effort, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D, TX-28) got, arguably, a more favorable district while Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D, TX-34) still seems to have a path to reelection; we rate the former as Leans Democratic and the latter as a Toss-up. The third district, which sits geographically in between those two, is TX-15, held by two-term Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R). TX-15 is also, by presidential partisanship, the reddest of the trio—it was the only one to vote for Trump in 2020, although it only did so narrowly, before it backed him by 18 points in 2024. Though De La Cruz ran a little behind Trump in 2024, she still won by 14 points that year.

South Texas Democrats have a heralded recruit in TX-15 this year with Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. We did get a rare public poll of the race earlier this morning: the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University found Democrats leading in all three South Texas seats, with Pulido up 50%-45%. Whether Pulido is actually leading is debatable, but our understanding is that this is indeed a highly competitive contest.

While we would usually not rate a Trump +18 seat as a Toss-up, the area just may be more elastic than most districts, and while the region is likely moving right in the longer term, there may be a significant snap back to Democrats in the short term.

J. Miles Coleman is the associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ authoritative, nonpartisan newsletter on American campaigns and elections. He also serves as the Center’s Media Relations Coordinator. Follow him on Twitter @jmilescoleman.

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