Trafalgar Group Has Talarico 3.5 Points Ahead in Texas Senate Race

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.

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