Donald Trump's odds for another victory in the Lone Star State have inched up in recent weeks with his advantage over Kamala Harris never wavering amid a lead between 5 percent and 7 percent in seven polls on the presidential race here in the past month.
Trump appears to have Texas locked up barring developments that are unforeseen with three weeks to go before the general election on November 5. Ted Cruz can't say the same in a re-election race that features Democrat Colin Allred on his heels with a realistic shot at winning even though the incumbent remains the favorite despite little or no apparent help from Trump in terms of coattails.
But the U.S. Senate race could be tantamount to a seawall that effectively kills the hopes that GOP down-ballot candidates harbor for a lift from Trump. The number of seats that Texas Democrats have a chance to pick up in legislative and congressional races could be a function of how well Cruz fares in a fight with the congressional Democrat from Dallas. The Democrats flipped a dozen Texas House seats the last time Cruz was on the ballot for a new term in 2018.
Cruz staved off a furious challenge from Beto O'Rourke in the clash that he won here six years ago by less than 3 percentage points. Cruz led Allred by 3.5 points on average in seven independent polls that were conducted on the Senate battle in Texas in the past month. Trump was up on Harris here by 6.4 percentage points on average in eight surveys of Texas voters during the same span of time.
Cruz has been running scared - warning Republicans that Democrats are gunning for him with Allred's war chest as compelling evidence. Cruz had raised more than $22 million for his campaign account in the current cycle that began at the start of 2023. But Allred reported contributions of $33.5 million from donors in the same time period.
Cruz had more cause for angst today after Politico reported that an internal poll by a Republican super PAC called the Senate Leadership Fund found the incumbent ahead by only 1 point.
The data site FiveThirtyEight showed Cruz ahead by 4 points on Monday in an ongoing aggregation of polling on the Senate competition in Texas. Real Clear Polling had the junior Texas senator with a lead of 4.8 points based on its own analysis of the race based on the polls.
Cruz led Allred by 9 points on average in polling on the race before President Joe Biden withdrew and handed the torch to the vice-president. A University of Texas poll found Cruz ahead by 16 in December when the Democratic nomination was still up for grab. Cruz's lead fluctuated wildly during the next seven months - ranging from a low of 2 points in an Emerson College survey in January to double digits in three subsequent UT polls before Biden dropped out of the race for president. The Texas Politics Project at UT had Cruz up by 8 points in an August poll.
But the Senate race has been considerably closer in the polls that were taken here in September and the first half of the current month. Cruz had led Allred by 4 points on average in three polls in Texas in October with a 5 point margin in a Marist College survey that was released the day after a Florida Atlantic University poll had the incumbent up by only 3. A poll that the New York Times conducted in a partnership with Sienna pegged the Cruz lead at 4 points in a survey that it made public last week.
Cruz led O'Rourke by nearly 8 points in the final month before the 2018 election when the incumbent beat the Democrat by less than 3. But the polling underestimated Trump in Texas in the run up to the 2020 election when he led Biden by only 1.1 point in the FiveThirtyEight calculation on the day of the vote. Real Clear Polling showed Trump up on Biden by 1.3 points on average. But the former president won by 5.8 percentage points in Texas four years ago.
more to come ...
