Epic Texas Senate Race Gets Toss Up Tag
as Independents May Be Key for Democrat
Capitol Inside
July 6, 2026
The prospects for a blue wave in Texas this fall appeared to have cooled a week ago in the midst of polling that's showed the lion's share of GOP voters sticking with their party's nominees regardless of their feelings for President Donald Trump, the state's top leaders or the direction of the country and the state.
But the Independence Day weekend may get the tsunami back on track after a series of revelations and events that could raise the Democrats' stock considerably with independent voters who could be in position to swing the U.S. Senate seat in Texas to the Democrats if the race goes to the wire. Such a development could lift Democrats to victory in a quest for the majority in the upper chamber in Congress.
The Capitol Inside rankings for the 2026 midterm election have all of the statewide races on the Texas ballot on the leans Republican list - with the lone exception of a monumental U.S. Senate fight that features the two most amazingly unique and polarizing candidates that have ever advanced this far in a race for a major office here. Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico are the epitome of polar opposites in the political vernacular in the Lone Star State. Talarico enjoyed a slender lead over the state attorney general during a span of nearly three months between the primary and runoff election when Paxton knocked longtime incumbent John Cornyn out in the overtime vote in the final week of May.
But Paxton pulled even in June as the apparent result of Cornyn supporters shifting their allegiance to the attorney general despite their recent disdain for the simple reason that he's the Republican nominee and Talarico is the Democrat. With Paxton's approval marks under water while Talarico's are not, it's evident that some of the Republicans who disapprove of the Texas AG in some polls are pinching-noses with plans to support him nonetheless in the general election this year.
The U.S. Senate race is ranked here as a toss up after being classified as leans Democrat for several weeks when Talarico appeared to have the early edge. The Texas Senate race is rated leans Republican prominent national election handicappers like the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato and the Cook Political Report. The veteran bipartisan forecasters had the Texas contest rated likely Republican since the outset until shifts in the Democrats' favor after Paxton emerged as the GOP nominee in the spring.
The view here from the Texas Capitol City is that the Paxton-Talarico bout gives new meaning to the phrase too close to call. Paxton probably is the safer bet in a state where Democrats haven't won statewide in 32 years. Paxton is the ultimate survivor in the political arena where fellow Republicans tried for years to take him out - from criminal charges in his home county to his impeachment by 60 GOP state lawmakers to a FBI probe for bribery to allegations about mistresses that prompted his wife State Senator Angela Paxton to divorce him last year.
Talarico in the meantime has made a giant target for Republicans whose chief weapon in the Senate race is a caricature that they've constructed based on some weird and silly statements that he made early in his career as a state representatives to liberal audiences in his hometown of Austin, the state's most progressive city by far. The Republicans are telling voters that Talarico is a socialist vegan who's grooming children to be transgender and transitioning himself to the female gender. The portrait includes claims that Talarico wants to destroy the Texas oil and gas industry. You could say that the narrative on Talarico is pure fiction based loosely on words that have been used selectively and usually out of context.
While some Democrats want Talarico to make a more concerted effort to defuse the wild allegations, he's been giving them lip service at best. The polling gives the impression that the attempt to paint the Democrat as a dangerous nut isn't connecting beyond the voters who were already in Paxton's corner.
Paxton has been ahead of Talarico by one-third of 1 percentage point on average in three non-partisan surveys that were taken on the Texas Senate race in June. The most recent - conducted by the New York Times and Siena University - showed the Senate contest in Texas dead even in the second half of June.
But the NYT/Siena poll found Talarico with a 27-point lead among independent voters - and another 23 percent said they would consider backing the Democrat in the Senate race here. Talarico had big leads among Black, Hispanic and women voters while Paxton was had a double-digit lead among men. But Paxton was beating Talarico 2-1 in rural areas that are rock-solid Republican.
Independents could decide a close Texas Senate race - and Trump may have done more over the weekend to hurt Paxton and the Republicans here during the Fourth of July weekend his giant celebration in Washington D.C. proved to be an unmitigated disaster and his intervention in the FIFA World Cup tournament sparked across the globe and left a taint on the U.S. game on Monday night against Belgian.
The organization reversed a red card ruling that would have sidelined the best American player Folarin Balogun for the U.S. match tonight in the tourney's round of 16. FIFA issued the ruling after Trump called and requested a review amid his claims that he would consider the game to have been stolen like the 2020 election if it did not. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas thanked Trump at an event at the White House today for "getting rid" of the red card.
Balogun is an American by virtue of birthright citizenship - which Trump has been fighting to end. The soccer star was born in New York City after his parents, who lived in London, had traveled to the U.S. for a visit while his mother was pregnant with him. He was back in the UK at the age of two months and lived there growing up. When not competing for the U.S. team, Balogun plays for Monaco a soccer squad Monaco in the French Football Association.
Trump's meddling put the U.S. team in a no-win situation before a game that it could have won without the star player. But Trump saluted the FIFA decision nonetheless in a social media post that called attention to his role in the soccer player's timely reinstatement. Paxton was giving independent voters added incentive to back Talarico in November by leaving the U.S. on a trip to Iceland with a female friend before America celebrated its 250th birthday during the weekend. The Texas Senate race could be back in the leans Democrat before long at this rate.
Coming this week: Texas congressional and legislative forecasts for the fall
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