Texas: Governor and Senate Both Inside Single Digits

A single Big Data Poll survey of 698 likely voters, completed September 26, has produced a split result in Texas that will draw attention regardless of how much weight it deserves. In the governor's race, Republican Greg Abbott leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa 49% to 44%, a five-point margin in a contest PollingSource rates a toss-up. In the Senate race, conducted among the same pool of respondents, Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Ken Paxton 47% to 45%, a two-point margin in a race PollingSource rates Lean D.

The notable feature here is not either topline number on its own but the gap between them. The same 698 voters who favor Abbott by five points are, on net, favoring Talarico by two — a nine-point swing in partisan preference depending on which office is being contested. That pattern, if real, would mean a meaningful share of Texas voters are prepared to back a Republican governor and a Democratic senator on the same ballot, a behavior that has become rarer in American elections as straight-ticket voting has hardened over the past decade.

There are more mundane explanations worth weighing before reaching for a ticket-splitting narrative. Candidate-specific favorability can produce this kind of divergence without any change in party loyalty — Abbott has run statewide multiple times and carries a personal brand distinct from his party label, while Paxton's public profile includes controversies that Talarico's campaign has worked to keep in view. A pollster surveying the same respondents on consecutive questions can also pick up order effects or differential turnout assumptions between the two races. And a sample of 698 carries a margin of error wide enough that the "true" gap between the two contests could be considerably smaller, or larger, than nine points.

What makes the divergence worth flagging rather than dismissing is that it lines up with the ratings PollingSource already assigns to these races. The governor's race is classified as a toss-up; the Senate race leans Democratic. A poll that shows Abbott ahead but within single digits, alongside Talarico ahead but within single digits, is consistent with — not contradictory to — the current state of both ratings. The question is whether this single survey is capturing a genuine feature of the electorate or simply landed, by chance, in a configuration that happens to match expectations.

That is the caveat that matters most here. One pollster, one field period, one sample of under 700 voters is not sufficient grounds to declare that Texas voters are splitting tickets in 2026, however suggestive the crosstabs look. Confirmation would require other pollsters showing a similar gap between the two races, or the same firm replicating the pattern in a subsequent survey. Until then, the honest reading is that both Texas races remain competitive on their own terms, and the space between them is a data point to watch rather than a conclusion to draw.

Texas has not sent a Democrat to statewide office in decades, which is precisely why any single poll suggesting daylight between the governor and Senate contests draws scrutiny — and why more data, not less, will be needed before that daylight can be called a trend.