Abbott Trails Dem by 5 in Congress District
Where Pulido Leads GOP Rep De La Cruz
Texas General Election Polls
General Election Rankings
Capitol Inside
August 4, 2026
A Democratic super PAC poll sent a new wave of jitters through GOP ranks from the Colorado River to the Potomac on Tuesday when it showed Democrat Bobby Pulido with a 6-point lead over incumbent Republican Monica De La Cruz in a U.S. House district where President Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024.
The House Majority PAC survey on the Congressional District 15 race in South Texas found Pulido with support from 51 percent compared to 45 percent who backed De La Cruz. The HMP poll that was taken July 23-27 also tested the CD 15 voters' preferences in the Texas governor's race and found Democrat Gina Hinojosa ahead of incumbent Republican Greg Abbott by 5 points there.
Republicans in Texas have been routinely refuting the results of polls that have shown Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race in Texas. Abbott's camp and other GOP partisans will seek to impugn the HMP poll's credibility based on the fact that the committee is unabashedly partisan. But the CD 15 poll raised the specter that Republicans could be in trouble in other Texas races in districts that are heavily Hispanic - and that could blow a hole through the expectations that GOP leaders and lawmakers in Austin had a year ago when they redrew the U.S. House map with five seats that are blue targeted for takeovers.
Abbott and Trump have both said repeatedly that Texas will be sending five more Republicans to the U.S. House after the general election on November 3. The GOP is only favored to flip three to four Texas congressional seats. But the ruling Texas party has expecting to keep all of 25 House seats it controls here now. In the event that the new House Majority PAC poll is accurate, Republicans here could be headed for the worst case scenario and do no better this fall than breaking even with the Democrats on the new map that Trump ordered the GOP-controlled Legislature to reconstruct for him last summer.
Polls have found Talarico leading Paxton by 30 to 40 points among Hispanic voters in a state where Trump won a majority of that critical bloc in 2024 and carried all of the districts that the Republicans redesigned for red conversions. But polling that's found Trump more unpopular than he's ever been nationwide have shown his support shrinking rapidly among Latinos across the U.S.
That's what appears to explain the Pulido lead in CD 15 where De La Cruz has been a significant favorite to win a third term after winning the seat initially in 2022 after Republicans at the state Capitol reshaped it to go red during the normal redistricting process the year before. CD 15 has a population that's 81 percent Hispanic as a district that snakes from its southern anchor in Hidalgo County on the border to rural counties east of the San Antonio area.
Three of the five Texas districts the Republicans targeted on the new Trump map have populations that are between 57 percent and 90 percent Hispanic. Democrats appear to have much better chances to defend Congressional District 34, which is 77 percent Hispanic, and Congressional District 35, which has a population that's 57 percent Hispanic. Democrats are favored to hold a fifth targeted Texas seat - Congressional District 28 - which is 90 percent Hispanic.
Republicans at the same time could be at risk of losing the Congressional District 23 seat in a district that';s 60 percent Hispanic if the HMP poll in CD 15 proves to be credible after the ballots are cast. The Republicans would have a net gain of zero if Democrats won CD 15 and CD 23 and successfully defended the target seats CD 28, CD 34 and CD 35. The controversial Texas power grab that sparked a war on redistricting across the USA would have been an epic failure in such an event.
Pulido already was known in South Texas and along the border as a Grammy-winning Latino music star who's performed at times on the stump in the CD 15 race and at larger party events like the state Democratic convention in Corpus Christi in June.
The new poll in CD 15 was was conducted by Normington, Petts & Associates for the HMP, which expects to be the leading source of funds for Democrats in pivotal congressional races at a time when Democrats are favored to reclaim the House majority at the polls this fall. A poll for the super PAC in September showed De La Cruz leading Pulido by 3 points with 41 percent support and 21 percent undecided.
A WelcomePAC poll in May found Pulido ahead by 2 points with 48 percent. De La Cruz was unopposed in the GOP primary in March when Pulido claimed the Democratic nomination with almost 68 percent in a duel with rival Ada Cuellar.
more to come ...
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