New Poll Shows Talarico Beating Either
GOP Foe while AG Leads Cornyn by 16
Capitol Inside
March 20, 2026
James Talarico's campaign contended on Friday that incumbent John Cornyn would fare no better than runoff foe Ken Paxton as the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas based on new internal polling that for the first time shows the Democrat beating whichever Republican he faces in November.
The pro-Talarico firm Impact Research found the state representative from Austin leading Cornyn by 2 points with 43 percent support in a hypothetical pairing for the general election in a survey of 900 likely voters over the course of five days ending March 17. But Talarico was up on Paxton by only by 1 point in the poll that showed the Democrat with 44 percent.
The Impact Research poll found Paxton the Texas attorney general with a 16-point advantage over Cornyn for a May runoff election with support from 53 percent compared to 37 percent for the veteran lawmaker who's held the Senate seat for nearly two dozen years. A separate poll that was released on Friday by Change Research found the GOP's overtime fight in the Senate race to be much closer - with Paxton ahead by 3 points at 42 percent.
Cornyn led Paxton by one point in the primary election on March 3 with almost 42 percent of the GOP vote. Talarico defeated Democratic congressional member Jasmine Crockett by 6 points with over 52 percent of the primary vote this month. Talarico received more than 1.2 million votes in round one when Cornyn and Paxton garnered slightly more than 907,000 and 881 000 respectively. Crockett had more support in the primary than either one of the top two Republicans with almost 1.07 million votes in the losing fight with Talarico.
Cornyn's hopes for survival in overtime appeared to depend heavily on an endorsement from President Donald Trump, who'd been on the verge of pitching his formal support to the incumbent based on Senate GOP leaders' assertions that Paxton was too controversial to win in the fall.
Trump announced on the day after the primary election that he would issue an endorsement in the Texas Senate runoff and demand that the candidate who he didn't choose drop out of the race immediately. But the endorsement failed to materialize before a Tuesday deadline for scratching candidates from the Texas runoff ballot.
Republicans will attempt to dismiss the new poll results based on claims that it's telling the candidate it favors what he wants to hear. But Impact Research was close to perfect in the first round when a poll that it conducted here in mid-February showed Talarico leading Crockett by 4 points. Another Democratic strategy shop - Public Policy Polling - and Emerson College both found Talarico up by 6 points late last month. Several polls by public universities in Texas in January and February had Crockett with a double-digit lead.
The Talarico campaign said Friday in a memo that the new polling shows that the Republicans will have a nominee who's "uniquely weak" and historically unpopular in the general election in the Senate contest.
"It doesn’t matter what happens in the Republican runoff," Talarico campaign manager Seth Kranse said. "James already knows who he’s running against: the billionaire megadonors and their corrupt political system. Ken Paxton embodies corruption and chaos. John Cornyn embodies weakness and the status quo. James offers something different: decency and integrity, a hopeful future, and a break from politics as usual."
A new Emerson College poll on Friday brought more bad news to GOP partisans in Texas and beyond - with Democrats leading the Republicans by 7 points in a generic congressional ballot test. Democrats held a 21-point advantage with Hispanic voters, a 62-25 edge among voters under 30 and a 54-37 lead among females who plan to vote in November.
more to come ...
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