Texas has not elected a Democrat senator since 1988. A new poll says it is now a coin toss

51 to 49.

That is the result of a new Fox News poll of the Texas race for the US Senate. The seat belongs to Republican John Cornyn, who lost his own party's runoff in May. Democrat James Talarico is on 51%. Republican Ken Paxton is on 49%.

In most states that would be a shrug. In Texas it set off alarms. One account with a huge following called the poll "a national emergency" for Republicans, and it drew close to a million views.

The replies split into camps. Some blamed Californians moving to Texas. Others said the poll is garbage and people should ignore it and vote. Some simply said they would never vote for Paxton.

So who is right, the people panicking or the people shrugging?

What does the Texas Senate poll actually say?

Fox News asked 881 likely Texas voters between 24 and 28 September 2026. The poll was run by two firms, one that works for Democrats and one that works for Republicans.

Talarico leads by 2 points. The poll has a margin of error of 3 points, which is bigger than the lead.

A poll does not ask every voter. It asks a few hundred and guesses the rest. The margin of error is how far that guess could be off. Talarico's real number could be anywhere from 48% to 54%. Paxton's could be anywhere from 46% to 52%.

Those ranges overlap. So the honest reading is a tie. Fox News itself said the result was within the margin of error.

A few other numbers in the poll lean towards Talarico. Voters like him more: 52% see him in a good light, against 40% for Paxton. And 20% of people who voted for Cornyn in the Republican primary now back the Democrat.

Why is a Texas tie such a shock?

Because Texas has stopped electing Democrats to the Senate.

The last one was Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. That is 38 years ago. No Democrat has won any statewide race in Texas since 1994.

Donald Trump won Texas by nearly 14 points in 2024. Texas is the second biggest state by population, and Republicans count on it.

That is why the poll set off such worry on the right. If Texas goes, the thinking runs, the Republican map stops working.

Photo: Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Who is James Talarico?

Talarico is 37. He has been a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives since 2018.

Before politics he was a teacher. He joined Teach For America in 2011 and taught sixth-grade English at a middle school in San Antonio for two years.

He is also a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and his Christian faith is at the centre of how he talks about politics. He has said the teachings of Jesus led him into politics, and he speaks out against Christian nationalism. His speech against a bill to put the Ten Commandments in classrooms went viral and landed him on The Joe Rogan Experience in 2025.

He won the Democratic primary on 3 March 2026 with 52.4%, beating Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.

Who is Ken Paxton?

Paxton has been the Texas attorney general, the state's top lawyer, since 2015.

His career has had big legal fights. In May 2023, the Texas House voted 121 to 23 to impeach him over claims that included abuse of office and bribery. Impeach means to formally charge an official so they can be put on trial. In September 2023, the Texas Senate acquitted him on all counts.

He also faced a securities fraud case, a charge about how money was raised from investors. It dated back to 2015. In March 2024 he agreed to a deal before trial. He paid about $271,000 to the people involved and did community service and ethics classes, without admitting guilt. The charges were dropped in 2025.

None of it stopped him with Republican voters. Trump endorsed him in May 2026. A week later Paxton beat Senator John Cornyn in the Republican runoff, about 64% to 36%.

Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

What do the other Texas Senate polls say?

Almost every recent poll is close, and most have Talarico slightly ahead.

Talarico leads in four of the six, by 2 to 6 points. One is tied. One has Paxton ahead by a single point.

Are Texas polls usually right?

Texas polls have missed before, and they have missed in both directions.

6.8 pts2018 polls

2.6 pts2018 result

4.4 pts2024 polls

8.5 pts2024 result

See the numbers

2018 polls	6.8 pts
2018 result	2.6 pts
2024 polls	4.4 pts
2024 result	8.5 pts

Polls are the final RealClearPolitics average. Results are the official counts: Cruz beat Beto O'Rourke 50.9% to 48.3% in 2018 and Colin Allred 53.1% to 44.6% in 2024. Sources: Newsweek, Wikipedia election results.

In 2018, the polls had Ted Cruz about 7 points ahead of Democrat Beto O'Rourke. Cruz won by less than 3. The Democrat did better than the polls said.

In 2024, it flipped. The polls had Cruz about 4 points ahead of Democrat Colin Allred. Cruz won by 8.5. This time the Republican did better than the polls said.

Both misses were about 4 points. That is bigger than the whole gap in the Fox poll. Pollster Nate Silver has said Texas polls do not always lean towards Democrats, and that O'Rourke beat his polls in 2018.

Photo: Steve Rainwater / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Did Californians moving to Texas change the vote?

It is one of the most common claims in the replies, and the numbers do not back it up much.

About 77,000 people moved from California to Texas in 2024, Census data shows. That is out of about 556,000 who moved to Texas from other states that year. Texas has about 31 million people, so the Californians are roughly 1 in 400 Texans.

And they are not mostly Democrats. A study by researchers at the University of Maryland and UT-Austin tracked California voters who moved to Texas. It found slightly more Republicans than Democrats among them. In Williamson County near Austin, 44% were Republicans and 29% were Democrats.

Why does the Texas Senate race matter so much?

Because of the Senate itself. The US Senate has 100 seats, and Republicans hold 53. To take control, Democrats need a net gain of four seats on 3 November 2026.

That is hard to do without winning somewhere unexpected. Texas is one of those places. A New York Times/Siena poll released on 3 October also had Democrats ahead in Alaska and Ohio, and close in Iowa.

The Senate matters even to people who never vote in the US. It approves judges, treaties and top officials, and it can block a president's plans. South Africans get their own vote a day later, in the local elections on 4 November. For a look at how the Trump camp talks about Democrats this year, see Karoline Leavitt's new life on TV.

So is Texas really up for grabs?

Yes, and that is new.

Texas polls have been off by about 4 points in each of the last two Senate races. The Fox gap is 2. So the people panicking and the people saying "just vote" are both reading the same poll correctly. It is a tie, and a tie in Texas means the race is open.

For 38 years, the only question in a Texas Senate race was how much the Republican would win by. This year, poll after poll asks a different one: who wins. That is why the alarm went off. Early voting opens on 19 October, and on 3 November Texans give the only answer that counts.