Some Texans who want to give Republican Governor Greg Abbott a fourth term plan to split their ballots, supporting Democrat James Talarico in the U.S. Senate race, according to three statewide polls released this week. Talarico, a state representative from the Austin area, is doing better in his Senate race against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton than Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa is doing against Abbott.
Paxton, in turn, is running behind Abbott's numbers at the top of the Republican ticket. The divergence hands Democrats their best opening in decades in a state that last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1988. It also points to a problem particular for Paxton.
Among the same voters, Abbott is competitive or slightly ahead at the top of the ticket while Paxton trails. A Marist poll, released Wednesday, has Talarico leading Paxton 47 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. In the governor's race, those same voters favor Abbott over Hinojosa 49 percent to 45 percent, a six-point shift between the two contests on the same ballot.
Marist surveyed 1,196 registered likely voters October 8-11, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Marist did not publish a breakdown of the Senate survey among Abbott supporters, but by comparing the two races group by group, the poll shows Paxton coming up short of Abbott almost everywhere. Republicans are where the crossover shows most clearly.
Talarico drew 8 percent of likely Republican voters in the Senate race, while Hinojosa drew 5 percent in the governor's race. Paxton had 87 percent of Republicans, compared with Abbott's 91 percent. Republicans were 42 percent of the likely electorate in the poll, so the small slippage explained most of why Talarico's numbers ran ahead of the Democratic numbers for governor.
White women with college degrees moved further. Talarico led Paxton 62 percent to 37 percent with the group, a margin about 9 points wider than Hinojosa's over Abbott. Suburban voters tilted Talarico's way, as well.
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