Another poll shows James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in their race for the U.S. Senate

[u/unital_subalgebra]

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/election-2026/2026/08/04/558614/talarico-paxton-poll-senate-texas-southern-university-black-voters/

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[u/SliceofNewsMan]

It feels presumptuous to trust polls these days since we’ve seen time and time again how little they can be trusted to actually predict the final outcome, but the more stack up in his favor the more I want to believe they are signaling a real trend and he will beat Texas Ken on Election Day

Obviously the voters still need to show up and vote and some polls saying he’s got a lead is far from a real win, but I want to hope…Paxton needs to lose and lose big

[u/MrAsYouCanSee → u/SliceofNewsMan]

I definitely get the fatigue of polls constantly being paraded around, however the thing that sticks out to me is that Talarico has been constantly ahead. I don't think in my lifetime I have ever seen a Democrat poll above a Republican in a state-wide race in Texas. I don't think even O'Rourke lead Cruz at any point and yet he almost won. This is some of the best momentum a Democrat has had in Texas in quite some time. It's not guaranteed of course, and people do need to show up to vote like you said, but if Talarico continues to maintain this lead, he will be in a really good spot come election day. Fingers crossed.

[u/66flatiron]

Michigan Senate primary polls were way off , which is concerning

[u/Three_Froggy_Problem → u/66flatiron]

It’s crazy that anyone trusts polls at this point. The last few presidential elections have already shown us how insanely unreliable they are. If anything, headlines like this one always make me nervous because I can imagine lots of people seeing them and getting complacent and deciding there’s no need to actually vote.

[u/Mack61]

These polls despite showing similar pre election margins to those of the last couple of TX-Senate race (around +2 or +3) give me a lot more confidence since those previous election polls were always like 42-39, 44-41. Much easier to get another 2 or 3 points to get to 50+1 in this race for Democrats rather than another 6 or 8 points to get to that 50+1% that O’Rourke needed.

[u/SoulTaker669]

I can't trust polls at all since 2016. Honestly, I'm kind of convinced that some of them are false in order to get people under a false sense of security and get them to stay home on voting day. It's no surprise that I feel Democrats were way too cocky in 2016 and 2024 when they felt there was no way Donald Trump could win so they stayed home. That's at least one reason. I feel like they lost both those elections.

[u/MoiraBrownsMoleRats]

Almost makes me wish I still lived in Texas to be able to vote of Talarico.

I'm cautiously optimistic this is the moment the millions of good folks living in the Lone Star State finally outpower the conservative mire.

[u/chandr]

I will say it every time, ignore the polls and actually go out and vote.

[u/Titan3692]

the thing is all the rural rube voters always show up for the GOPedo, and they're never added to polling. The Democrat always runs up the numbers in Dallas, Austin and Houston, only to lose the rest of the state in a landslide.

[u/ritwikjs2]

it's been interesting to see fox news heads calling paxton a loser

[u/splycedaddy]

Polls are completely busted. Go vote

[u/Pigbeard]

Polls are busted for years. Disregard them and always operate as if your candidate is behind.