Also, there’s another favorable poll for Democrats in Maine.
Please consider the Trafalgar Texas Statewide General Election Survey conducted 10/06/26 – 10/08/26.
Trafalgar Senate Cross Tabs
- James Talarico: 47.1 percent
- Ken Paxton: 43.6 percent
- Ted Brown: 1.8 percent
- Undecided: 7.6 pecent
There is no particular advantage in the undecided voters cross tabs to believe they are likely to break hard in one direction. Male and female votes are roughly equal.
If age group 65+ breaks for Republicans, that would help them. The same holds true but in the opposite direction for age groups 18-29 and 30-39.
Age group 65+ is larger, but it is not clear what the turnout will be, or the expected break if any.
On the basis of cross tabs alone I expect the net impact to be roughly neutral to slightly Democrat for a Democrat win.
Since the beginning of the year, I have expected undecideds, independents, and Hispanics to break very heavily towards Democrats.
It’s clear that has happened. But It remains to be seen if that continues with what remains of the undecideds.
If the current polls are accurate, an even to slightly split negative split of what remains would throw Texas into the Democrat column.
Polymarket Texas Senate
According to Polymarket, Talarico peaked on October 6 at 68 percent. Odds are currently down to 60 percent. Kalshi is also 60 percent.
Nate Silver Deluxe is 74.7 percent. I think he is too high by about 10 percentage points.
Nate Silver Included Texas Polls
Silver includes some pretty garbage polls plus a lot of stale ones. Some stale polls date to May with a non-zero weight, but some with tiny weights.
I would toss things earlier than mid-August.
Spotlight Maine
The Washington Post reports Democrat has edge over Susan Collins in critical Maine Senate battle, poll finds
Democrat Troy Jackson has a slight edge over Republican Sen. Susan Collins with less than a month before Election Day in the Senate battleground Maine, a Washington Post-Schar School poll finds.
Jackson attracts 50 percent of likely voters compared with Collins’s 46 percent in the poll of 800 likely voters conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, before the two faced off this week in the first of four debates. Jackson’s lead is within the range of sampling error.
Fewer than 4 in 10 likely voters, 36 percent, approve of President Donald Trump, presenting a challenge for Collins, who is struggling to outrun the deeply unpopular president enough to hang on in the blue state. A majority of likely voters — 58 percent — say Collins has supported Trump too much in the U.S. Senate.
There are bright spots in the poll for Collins, who defeated her Democratic challenger by nearly nine percentage points in 2020 despite consistently trailing in polls in the final month of the race.
Voters prefer Collins over Jackson by a 24 percentage-point margin on her ability to steer federal dollars to Maine, the centerpiece of the bring-home-the-bacon campaign she is running. They also favor her on the issue of bipartisanship, suggesting that at least a portion of voters are open to her argument that she has maintainedsome distance from the unpopular president.
But voters favor Jackson on five other key issues: abortion (by 16 percentage points), reducing corruption (15 points), understanding the problems of Maine voters (11 points), cost of living (11 points) and health care (9 points).
Maine Senate Polymarket
Maine is another state that has tightened according to the betting markets.
Odds of Democrat win is down from 71 percent to 56 percent.
A huge warning sign is Sue Collins tends to outperform polls.
Two bonuses for Democrats this election are Trump, and voter turnout. I expect turnout to be down nationally for Republicans.
A bonus for Collins is Democrats picked a relatively weak candidate just as they did Michigan.
Once again I think Nate Silver is too high for Jackson at 71.6 percent. I think 60 percent is closer and that it’s a mistake to discount the betting markets.
National Scorecard
The National Scorecard heavily favors democrats. They are leading, at least marginally, in 5 of 7 races are are no worse then tied in two more.
They need net pickup of four which still seems likely. And plus 7 is not out of the question.
Since the races in each state are more independent than usual, that also helps Democrats a bit.
Winning Texas and Kansas but losing Maine is not something that was on anyone’s radar in January, but it is a possibility now.
Also, Democrats are so far ahead nationally, they can win the Senate with a uniform 2.0 percentage point error in Republicans’ favor.
Related Posts
October 10, 2026: The Surprise Issue that May Swing Ohio and Michigan Is Data Centers
Local anger over energy bills and lost farmland hits two key battleground races.
October 8, 2026: The Only Hope for Republicans in the Midterms Is a Huge Polling Error
Early voting has started. Most minds are made up. It’s too late for major change.
October 6, 2026: Cook Political “Senate Majority is Squarely in Democrats’ Sights”
Cook Political shifts 3 Senate ratings towards Democrats.
When the Cook Political base case is Democrats +2 in the Senate, you know it looks bad for Republicans.
So, it can be 53-47 for the D’s now?
Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all. My nominees for Rotating Villains: Fetterman, Kelly, Hickenlooper, Warner, Coons, Peltola, Talarico…
That’s 7 very obvious ones right there. And if push comes to shove and they need as many as 14 of them, the Ds can make it happen!
Even if the Ds take both houses, I agree it is quite possible the Senate Ds will “find the votes” to not convict DT.
It takes 2/3 of the senate to convict. Do the math instead of sounding dumb.
I am sure the Israeli government has some say on this, since Donald does their bidding as a proxy. He did a nice job for them on Iran, and he will be repaid. Anyone looking to impeach him will geet an envelope full of photos with them doing strange or illegal stuff
Oh goodie! I can’t wait for nothing to happen!
Those epstein files have plenty of powerfull Dem billionaire donors in them. Why do you think they let Trump off the hook over jan 6. the scariest time in USA was post 9.11.01. Ds and Rs arm in arm singing patriotic songs and lusting for world wide bloodlust. of course anyone who read PROJECT FOR NEW AMERIKAN CENTURY knew the embassy bombings in 1998 and 9.11.01 were welcome. hell, the CIA and bush crime family practically waved in the planes for the one way tickets to the twin towers and pentagon and us capitol. the last one aborted over PA.
Diesel Is the Number That Will Decide November
https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/diesel-is-the-number-that-will-decide
December Brent approaching $107. 🤑
The race between oligarch puppets matters less than the race between oligarchs for wealth.
Vote accordingly.
So the boomers can once again keep America in the current hellish paradigm. Like I said, the safest time to return to U.S. is around 2036 when most of these folks are six feet under. The grim reaper can’t come fast enough!
Not going to bother voting at all, too many problems republican’ts and democan’ts can’t and won’t fix anyway. I’ll let the suckers and losers reap what they sow this election cycle.
“Like I said, the safest time to return to U.S. is around 2036 when most of these folks are six feet under. The grim reaper can’t come fast enough!”
Wait…is there a Deagle Report rev 2? Nobody shared with me yet.
Kidding, almost surely.
MPO is the smartest man on planet earth. after donald and elon.
Top 10 ways boomers out themselves online.
1. Endlessly talking about themselves (their health, their past, their job, their “awesomeness”) AND repeats the stories endlessly
2. Endlessly talking about the past, e.g stories from the 60s,70s,80s (usually stops at 80s as if time stopped here for boomers)
3. Rarely speaks about happenings NOW or FUTURE impact likely because there isn’t much future left for them so why bother right?
4. Typical life philosophy will include one or more of these: racism, misogyny, bigotry, sexism, and zero self-reflection
5. Will SHOUT using all caps as if using a bull horn and have no filter. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
6. Will complain endlessly about WOKE, DEI, trans-anything, feminism yet gets easily triggered when called out
7. Hates socialism but loves social security, medicare and other free handouts because “they paid for it” as if they were the sole people to ever pay taxes
8. Rarely talk about their family relations (e.g. kids) likely because they have broken relationships with all their kids and grandkids and no one can stand them.
9. Endless greed, selfishness, self-absorption
10. Hate being ignored – Pro Tip: Best way to deal with boomers online or anywhere is to hit the mute button, it drives them nuts! They will change their handle/name to be heard again but you know where the mute button is! Rinse and repeat!
Straw persons, Bad sampling. Vast numbers who do not do hose things are invisible to your brilliant analysis.Take high school statistics and get back to me.
you really fell for the oldest scam in the world. generational bias. i think i gave that stupid shit up when i was about 16 years old. that was 200 years ago. want to hear about real life experience in the us civil war, sonny boy ? my old guard pals in charleston called it the recent unpleasantness. please MPO, never change. i actually think you are a smart young fella. i enjoy some of your commentary. peace and love from this 200 year old
i concur with most of that.
You can only judge people one at a time, anyone that judges by the group is an idiot.
Wow, pretty nasty analysis to tar millions with… You must be a lot of fun at the Thanksgiving table. “Die Boomer, Die… But remember me in your will”.
There are really only two teams to choose from. Team milquetoast “conservatives” conserving nothing and Team commie/DSA. Frying pan meet fire. And from personal experience the people breaking the family connections are team Millenial and to a lesser extent, Z. It’s all about the feels and little to no logic. Not all are this way, I meet folks where they are.
Yes, MPO has figured out the uni-cause of all grief in the universe, boomers, and turned it into a fixation of grievance. Featuring thick-headed straw person boomers, unlike any I personally know (or am). But oddly resembling him, in mental narrowness and thickness: all this makes MPO the aggrieved hero in a mega drama, much like MAGA members. It relieves them of personal complexity and agency, elevating them in their own eyes. Call it the Star Wars school of simplistic philosophy: “them are the dark side stealing everything from we of the light side ” It also justifies splitting off and dehumanizing a vast number of humans. these tendencies are common throughout history and psychology, certainly 20th century history which provides scary experiments andlessons, for those willingto do the mental work, versus fast forward to the appalling conclusions.
ha ha. agree. i’ve been studying anthropology since the 1970s. even married an archaeologist. human beings are not that complicated. we do the same old same old. dawn of everything by graeber is a must read. so is his book, titled, DEBT, The First 5,000 Years: Graeber, David
DEAGLE REPORT. bwaaaaaahhhhhhh. i think if MPO had his way he’d exterminate everyone over the age of 21 in work camps.
MPO reminds me of the Red Guards of Chairman Mao. shock troops of millions of youth in the 1960s……….fun times had by all.
MPO seems desperate to re-learn lots of history the hard way. I’m sure there is a viral movement of these elsewhere on the Web, as with “looksmaxxing” and so much else. And as bell curves go, some small number of idiots in teh tails of the curve will take it to ludicrous and horrible extremes. MPO is treading in that direction, but my money says, won’t go there literally. .
who knows. he’s probably a decent guy. maybe just in love with his brilliance and his escape plan. i do think leaving a cratering evil empire is smart. however my experience in russia in the 1990s doing business with my russian pal investment bankers and oligarchs tells me opportunities here will be stellar. the central gov in DC will become much weaker in years ahead. the states governmors and peoples will be more important. being a middle brow or poor in NY is much different from the same in SC. should be more fun to be here. plus most of us 100-plus-year-olds have families and dear friends we enjoy and love. ray kurzweil “singularity is near” is a wonderfully uplifting book on mankind progressing…….
no offense to anybody meant, but someone needs to hold this generation accountable for the mess they created. It’s as simple as that and the youngest generation is poised to go down the socialist hell hole for how many generations who knows, I’ll be calling them out if I’m still alive when the time and the new mess comes.
pro tip. pax amerika has been a worldwide imperial warmongering democracy since at least 1898 and Teddy as sec of navy……..nothing new. amerikans love it. democracy works. when i vote in italia versus usa the differences in understanding history is off the charts different. amerikans love being violent warmongering imperialists. it’s at least 6 generations back like this. get a grip old sport. i wish well being a nomad capitalist. a smart move. jimmy rogers is my favorite capitalist. investment biker……….he’s also a great guy. i know him for decades. not great but good enough to devour his wisdom and sense of humor. his tale of motorcycling to woodstock from columbia business school is legendary.
Yes, this Admin is busy weakening the Fed. institutions – so that will assist in the (peaceful) breakup of the US.
My father was 93 and my mother was 97 when they passed away. Sorry, but the odds are pretty good I will still be here. We now have 3 Paxton signs in my wealthy, boomer heavy, neighborhood and dozens of Talarico signs. All Paxton signs are accompanied by the signs of other Republican candidates and a sign that pleads with neighbors to keep Texas Red. Talarico signs are also often accompanied by signs for other Democratic candidates, but there are numerous yards with a lone Talarico sign or a lone Hinajosa sign. I’m guessing those could be Republicans who plan on voting either against Paxton or against Abott. Ft. Lurch is the only urban city in Texas that still votes mostly for Republicans. Without Ft. Lurch in their camp, the rural Red vote of Texas could be in trouble.
remind those bozos that originally the republicans were the blues and democrats the reds. guess why they switched. Dems didn’t like the RED moniker and got CNN……..to switch it around. in reality in a blind test nobody could tell who was in power the past 65 years. in congress or potus……..it’s impossible. uniparty imperial warmongering peoples vote themselves into office. the team colors are idiotic.
Talarico was absent from the campaign trail for two weeks. Rumours of a stay at a luxury loony hospital have not been proved.
BUT taking no chances, Ken Paxton has checked himself into Houston Harris County Psychiatric Center dressed as a banana. “Two can play the loony sympathy card,” Paxton said. “I’m a gender-queer non-binary banana woohooo!”
Best Mid-terms ever!
I still think Paxton will win. As a native Texan (who happily moved away decades ago), you can NEVER underestimate the stupidity of Texas voters.
Your next president is JD Vance.
Only if Trump doesn’t finish his term.
That will confirm we are stuck in a particularly ludicrous and horrifying branch of the alternate universes.
Vance won’t win a general.
World War 3 is well underway. Trump may declare an emergency come November or January.
Confirming Trump’s ambitions to be the cause and cure of all our concerns. He will re-christen Burning Man as Trump Is Da Man.
I had to look up the Battle Of Trafalgar, just in case it was on Jeopardy.
THIS is why I come here. 🙂
the good news kids. the day after midterms is beginning of 2028 POTUS race. maybe a grudge match. mamala harris v don jr.
I agree – Trump will endorse his son – no one else will do.
Mish, hope you are surviving the floods!
Its gonna get ugly.
if these reports out there are true that talarico checked into a mental health facility and lied to his staff and voters, he might be toast. the funny season is upon us.
it’s not real. no one calls a mental health institute front desk and gets patient information.
This is Jojo tier posting.
nope. i said IF the reports are true. of course plenty of people can get through and get patient info. not too hard. get transferred around and say your computer is down and you work there and looking for info on some name. what’s coming out i will say looks like it’s fake. it’s the silly season. part of politics. lots of bullshit in the last few weeks.
Entertaining this delusional story is Jojo tier posting. As someone who works in computers, specifically security, that ain’t how social engineering works. Absolutely hilarious grasp at straws from boozed up maga copers and nothing more.
“Jojo tier posting” 😂
i don’t recall much of jojo. perhaps he is my long lost idiot pal. i still LOL at how pathetically stooooopid amerikans are. i’ve been voting in italia and usa for decades. amerikans actually believe in the morons of red and blue teams. they are children.
and if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle…
Just think how far ahead the democratic senate candidate in Texas would be if they’d nominated someone who wasn’t a dweeb. Dems could have been winning statewide races earlier but for their fascination with cherub-faced skateboarder candidates.
Democrats skew younger so cherub-faced skateboarders are mainstream cool.
Eh, that Jackson guy up against Collin’s looks like another boring candidate, rather than a hip young dude.
Yeah, he’s a few points ahead, but guess what?
He’s kinda boring.
Who is more mentally ill? – the canidate, the pollsters or the people being pollled? It is a sad state of affairs that we have Mitch McConnell, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and had Joe Biden as president. In the past, we have had dead people get elected. If you have to be mentally competent to stand trial, perhaps the same rules should apply to being elected. This is a shame on our country on so many levels.
Chill out. You’re way ahead of those kook pretenders.
feinstein was mugged outside my old condo building in oakland a few years ago. i admit i chuckled at that.
What level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was that action servicing?
Is there anyplace you didn’t live? Oakland, Charleston, Arizona, Brooklyn…
I wonder how the news reports of Talarico entering a mental health facility in Ohio will affect his chances.
haha, ‘news reports’… aka an insanely amateur fake phone call by a known drunk MAGA shill. It’s ludicrous and won’t sway anyone who is not already a fully converted member of the cult. As if some random mouth breather can call a mental health institution and the hospital receptionist would give out patient information to him.
My god, people have no critical thinking skills.
What do you expect from the generation that gleefully thought Trump would bring back manufacturing with tariffs? A good portion of boomers are obsessed with a delusional fantasy of returning to their childhood dream country and will believe literally anything to get there including. I’ve seen the elderly in my life become completely brainwashed by AI generated slop because they’re too old to tell what’s real and what’s not.
You are so wise! Perhaps you can educate the elders in your life on how things work, and explain these newfangled AI thingamajobbers?
What would the elders do without the young, like our boy Creamer here, to fill them in on how the world really works?
ha ha ha
Remember when you said Iran was gonna crumble in two weeks? Or the time you went on a deranged rant about trans people replacing your kids? I think I can tell you what the elderly (you) are doing without me: eating lots and lots of healthy slop from your masters at Fox. What’ll be the next desperate boogeyman businesswoman? Mexicans are fresh out, nobody gives a shit about trannies, and Iran won. Are you really going to try to sell this story too?
Slay, queen!
i “think” you are real. but not sure. you might be AI generated chinese slop bot
If anyone. Is fake. It might be the guy who. Can’t use a period in a “sentence”. And tells is stories about when he. Bought a house with gold coins.
Yippee used to be Alex but forgot his password to that account.
That’s terrible. If I was a prayin’ man…..
Given taco’s continuing verbal vomit and ridicule of any human being who disagrees with him, should provide support for the opposition. If the republicans were smart, they would send him on a six week vacation.
Um, you are aware this is Texas we’re talking about?
If democrats do take congress – @Mish what is your expected economic outcome?
I think it’s crap regardless. The Uniparty is spend, spend, spend. Exchanging criminal control from one party to another.
The Uniparty Is War, War, War.!
25 Year ‘War Of Terror’ – Iraq WMD Lies ( 2001) To Iran WMD Lies ( 2026).!
US/NATO/Greater Israel (Bankrupt) Vs BRICS (Resource Rich)
since 1898 at least. see teddy to donald.
First of all … You are not MISH.
Secondly for me you described a situation in which gold (and possibly crypto) might flourish.
Neither party is willing yet to say no to its free lunch contingents, who will appear hat in hand for their electoral spoils. I think either way, the resulting debt and deficit, not yet at full blown crisis levels, will appear as higher interest rates. A national tax rise on the high end would be interesting, and would certainly send a lot of tax lawyers’ kids to college. This pressure to raise taxes and/or cut spending could create continued instability flipping between Dem and Repub rule. There is still room for an outlier, MAGA or socialist or whatever set of unperformable gimmicks and promises, to get in, in such circumstances.
If we look at Biden’s wish list early on, home care for elderly, for example, and lavish student loan relief, went out the window. The Inflation Reduction Act candy was partly distributed, was it not, some even to red states (Dem suckers thought that would get friends!) before Trump’s triumphalist return. Luckily for us, the USA is full of pretty productive people who have been pulling the cart forward, and (among the marginally better off) patriotically spending their hearts out ,despite all this mishegas.
Some? Biden showered Texas with money. Close to 100 billion. Infrastructure improvements all over the place. Tons of them. 9 billion in student loan relief. Trump canceled the Biden allocation of 105 million to Austin for the I-35 corridor project. F the Austin liberals.
thanks genocide joe.
Brings back ancient memories of Trump’s promises of beautiful health care for all, big infrastructure, easy-to-win trade wars, and Mexico paying for a border wall. That was a millennium ago in Trump years.