Three months ago, Democrat James Talarico held an eight-point lead over Republican Ken Paxton in the 2026 Texas U.S. Senate race. That cushion is gone. Multiple polls now show the race either tied or tilting toward Paxton, a swing that tracks with increased scrutiny of Talarico's public statements on religion, his personal finances, and his record in the Texas legislature.
The shift is sharp. A University of Texas poll conducted in April showed Talarico ahead 42 percent to 34 percent. The most recent University of Texas survey flipped the script, Paxton leads 43 to 42. A New York Times/Siena poll found the two candidates deadlocked at 47 percent apiece. And the RealClearPolitics poll-of-polls average puts Paxton at 45.2 percent to Talarico's 44.6 percent.
That is a nine-point swing in the University of Texas data alone. For a Democrat running in Texas, a state where Beto O'Rourke spent tens of millions and still fell short, those numbers should set off alarms inside the party.
Paxton arrived in this general-election matchup with considerable momentum. As the New York Post reported, the Texas attorney general crushed incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary runoff by a 27-point margin, 63.8 percent to 36.2 percent, after securing President Trump's endorsement. Paxton called Trump's backing "the most powerful force in politics" after locking up the nomination.
The Texas Senate primaries were the most expensive in U.S. history, with more than $110 million spent on advertising. Paxton's runoff victory marked the third consecutive win for a Trump-endorsed candidate in ten days, following the defeats of Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky.
That pattern of Trump-backed dominance has reshaped the Republican landscape. Louisiana voters ousted Cassidy over his 2021 impeachment vote, sending a clear message about the cost of breaking with the party's base.
Paxton himself acknowledged the significance of Trump's loyalty during the bruising primary fight. "When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn't listen," Paxton said of Trump's endorsement.
If the polling trajectory tells one story, the emerging profile of Talarico tells another. The 37-year-old Democrat state legislator entered the Senate race with the kind of packaging consultants love, a pickup truck, cowboy hat, and cowboy boots. The image was designed to signal that this was no coastal progressive but a real Texan who could compete on Republican turf.
But the packaging has started to peel. A series of reports from Breitbart and other conservative outlets have surfaced claims about Talarico's public statements on religion, including an assertion that he declared "God is non-binary" and described Christianity as "the most violent religion." Separate reporting alleged he shares a checking account with his mother, a detail that cuts against the rugged-independent brand his campaign has cultivated.
None of these claims have been rebutted on the record by Talarico's campaign in the available reporting. Whether voters ultimately care about a candidate's theological freelancing or his banking arrangements is an open question. But the timing of the polling collapse suggests that as more Texans learn about Talarico beyond the hat and the truck, they like what they see less.
Trump's endorsement of Paxton over Cornyn was itself a gamble that has paid off handsomely so far. The former president bypassed a sitting senator in favor of a state attorney general who had faced his own political turbulence, and the base responded overwhelmingly.
The Democratic primary itself deserves scrutiny. Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the nomination, a choice that may prove costly. Crockett, a sitting congresswoman, brought a built-in appeal to the Black voters who form a critical pillar of any Texas Democrat's coalition. She was, by most measures, a more authentic representative of the party's actual base.
Instead, the Democratic establishment, including, reportedly, former late-night host Stephen Colbert, lined up behind Talarico. The logic appeared to be that a white, male, cowboy-hat-wearing moderate could peel off enough rural and suburban voters to make Texas competitive. It is the same theory Democrats have tested and failed with before in the state.
The problem is familiar. Democratic strategists keep trying to build candidates in a lab who can win Texas by pretending to be something they are not. O'Rourke tried the skateboarding-punk-rocker version. Talarico is trying the church-going-cowboy version. Voters tend to see through the costume eventually.
What makes Talarico's case particularly fragile is the gap between the image and the record. A candidate who drives a truck and wears boots but reportedly calls Christianity violent and says God is non-binary is not threading a needle, he is standing on both sides of a fault line, hoping nobody notices.
The broader Democratic predicament in Texas mirrors the party's national identity problem. Rep. Al Green's recent primary loss in Texas showed that even long-tenured Democrats are not safe when their records come under serious examination. The party cannot decide whether it wants to run as progressive or pragmatic, and the result is candidates who come across as neither.
Strip away the commentary and the character questions, and the raw data tells a clean story. In April, Talarico led by eight points in the University of Texas survey. Today, he trails by one in that same poll. The New York Times/Siena survey, conducted by one of the most respected polling operations in the country, shows a dead heat at 47.
RealClearPolitics, which averages multiple polls to smooth out outliers, gives Paxton a 0.6-point edge. That is within any reasonable margin of error. But the direction matters more than the snapshot. Every available data point shows movement toward Paxton and away from Talarico.
Important caveats apply. No sample sizes, margins of error, or detailed methodological breakdowns for these polls appear in the available reporting. The race is still more than a year from Election Day. A great deal can change. But the trajectory is the trajectory, and right now it runs in one direction.
The broader fight within the Republican Party over Trump's agenda and Senate dynamics adds another layer. If Paxton wins this seat, he arrives in Washington as an unmistakable Trump ally, not a legacy Republican who can be pressured by leadership, but a combative attorney general who owes his nomination entirely to the populist base.
The open questions are real. Can Talarico stabilize his numbers, or will continued scrutiny of his record accelerate the slide? Will Democrats invest the kind of money needed to make Texas competitive, or will national strategists write off the state and redirect resources to more winnable races? And will Paxton's own political baggage, he faced an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate in 2023, give Democrats an opening to claw back ground?
For now, the facts on the ground favor Paxton. He has Trump's endorsement, a 27-point primary victory behind him, and a polling trend that has erased his opponent's once-comfortable lead. Talarico has a cowboy hat, a complicated relationship with his own stated faith, and a shrinking margin.
Texas has a way of sorting out candidates who show up in costume. The boots may fit, but the record has to match, and right now, Talarico's doesn't.
