Democrat James Talarico has taken a four-point lead over Republican Ken Paxton in a new Texas Senate poll, adding another twist to what has become one of the country’s most closely watched races.
The BIG DATA POLL, conducted September 24–26, found Talarico with 43.6% support among registered voters, compared with 39.3% for Paxton.
That’s a 4.3-point advantage for Talarico.
Another 5.2% backed Libertarian candidate Ted Brown, while 11.9% remained undecided.
Among likely voters, the race is considerably tighter.
Talarico leads Paxton 44.6% to 41.6%, giving the Democrat a three-point advantage. And when undecided voters were asked which candidate they were leaning toward, Talarico’s lead shrank to roughly two points among both registered and likely voters.
For years, a Democratic candidate leading a Republican in a statewide Texas Senate race would have been an unusual sight.
This year, it’s becoming increasingly common in the polling.
The Texas Senate contest has drawn national attention as Talarico and Paxton have traded narrow leads in surveys conducted throughout September.
A Texas Politics Project compilation of recent nonpartisan polling showed Talarico ahead in several September surveys, including a six-point lead in the NPR/Marist poll conducted September 17–20.
The latest BIG DATA POLL adds another close result to the pile.
And the polling average has also shown Talarico with a narrow advantage. RealClearPolitics’ average of polls conducted through September 22 had Talarico ahead 47.6% to 44.6%, a three-point margin.
The numbers aren’t exactly screaming that this race is over.
In fact, the contest becomes much tighter when pollsters focus on voters most likely to actually cast a ballot.
And the poll’s margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
The race is being watched closely because of what a Talarico-Paxton contest says about Texas itself.
Democrats have struggled to win statewide elections in Texas for decades, while Republicans have built a formidable statewide operation.
But the 2026 Senate race has become much more competitive.
The Cook Political Report currently classifies the contest as a Toss Up, underscoring how unsettled the race has become.
The broader political environment is also part of the picture.
The BIG DATA POLL found Republicans still leading Democrats on the statewide generic congressional ballot among likely voters, 47.3% to 41.9%.
Yet Talarico is running ahead of that Democratic congressional number in the Senate contest, suggesting the race is being shaped by more than simply the overall partisan balance in Texas.
For Talarico, the latest survey provides another data point showing him ahead of Paxton in a statewide contest that Republicans have long expected to be difficult for Democrats to crack.
For Paxton, the same poll offers plenty of reason to keep fighting.
His three-point deficit among likely voters is within the poll’s margin of error, and the gap narrows even further when undecided voters are pushed toward a candidate.
That leaves the Texas Senate race in familiar territory: Close. Very close.
The BIG DATA POLL surveyed 793 registered voters and 698 likely voters between September 24 and 26. The reported sampling error was ±4 percentage points for both samples.
