CBS News political experts weigh in on Texas Senate race halfway through early voting
With the early voting period halfway over and Election Day looming, the candidates for U.S. Senate in Texas continue to cross the state to get their supporters to the polls. Both the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, and the Republican nominee, Attorney General Ken Paxton, made multiple stops in North Texas last week to make their final pitches to voters.
The race has been rated a toss up for months, with most recent polls showing Talarico maintaining a narrow lead. The latest RealClearPolitics polling average gives Talarico a 1.8-percentage-point lead. That's in line with the results of the latest CBS News poll, which showed Talarico leading 51% to 49%, well within the margin for error.
After the poll was released, CBS News executive director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto and CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe spoke with CBS News Texas political reporter Jack Fink about their main takeaways.
Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Jack Fink, CBS News Texas political reporter: Anthony, let's start with you. CBS News released a new Texas poll last Sunday showing a very tight race, not surprising. 51% for Democrat James Tallarico to 49% for Republican Ken Paxton. And there were other data points, obviously, as part of your poll. What stuck out to you most?
Anthony Salvanto, CBS News executive director of elections and surveys: The first thing, and I'm glad you described it as tight, because that is the way to describe it. It really is within the margin of error. The turnout dynamic here is the first thing to have everybody watch, which is to say, in the polling, Democrats were more likely to say they would definitely vote than Republicans were.
That gives a boost for the moment to Talarico in the polling, but it also sets up such a key thing to watch in this next week or two, which is, can Democrats then make that a reality by turning out their vote, especially in the early vote, where I think they'll be counting on a lot of that.
And then, of course, can Republicans rally the base? Because, as you and your viewers know, there are numerically more Republicans in Texas. The question is just going to be whether or not they turn out or whether they stay home. Doesn't seem like many of them are ready to vote for a Democrat, but whether or not they show up is the big question, Jack.
Fink: Ed, what stuck out to you about the poll?
Ed O'Keefe, CBS News senior White House and political correspondent: Anthony and I talked about some of the crosstabs, as you dive into the numbers and look at different groups of people. Two numbers stood out to me. One, that only 5% of Republicans said they were going to vote for James Talarico. And in this world, as Anthony describes it, of a larger Republican voting percentage, you would think he needs to be peeling away more of those Republicans than just 5%. Or he's banking on the hope that of those Republican voters, a bunch of them just skip the Senate race or stay home entirely.
The other sign of vulnerability is that in this poll, Talarico is doing slightly less, or has slightly less support among Black voters in the state than Kamala Harris earned two years ago. That speaks to the vulnerability that his primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett from the DFW area, signaled could be an issue going into November.
The idea that if you don't have someone who's more liberal or a minority candidate on the ballot, you're going to have a harder time driving up the base of support for any Democrat in the state, and that is, in her argument, Black voters. Now, maybe he makes that up with independents, maybe he makes it up in the Rio Grande Valley with the large percentage of Hispanic voters that appear to be swinging back towards Democrats. And that would be a new theory or a different way of winning statewide, but it is potentially a danger sign for him as these closing days approach.
Fink: And Anthony, it was interesting to Ed's point, because one of the big questions I think we're all going to be watching is, will Republicans come home to vote for Paxton? A lot of people think there's going to be an undervote between him and Gov. Abbott, and certainly we've seen that in the polls and in your poll.
Salvanto: One of the questions I asked as a follow-up is, if you're supporting Paxton, why? And I asked that of Talarico voters. If you're supporting Talarico, why? And the difference between the two sets of voters is interesting. The bulk of voters supporting Paxton are doing so because he's the party's nominee. And that speaks to your point about whether or not Republicans will come home and support the party, even if their candidate preference is not particularly as strong.
The other item, back to something Ed raised, because it's very important, is you look at the Latino vote, which of course could be potentially pivotal here, and you do see a Latino vote going more towards Talarico at the moment. Whereas, back in 2024, that went towards the president when he won Texas quite handily. And that's going to be another key to watch. You see it in certain regions, of course, you see it in the Rio Grande Valley, you see it around the major cities, but really that's a dynamic that I think is going to be critical if, in fact, this is going to be a tight race.
Fink: Ed, you and I spoke in Dallas at the first-ever RNC midterm convention. One thing that you and I talked about stuck out in my mind was that the big money people are going to be behind closed doors trying to figure out how to fund Paxton's campaign, because unlike Talarico, who was on TV all summer advertising and introducing himself to voters, Paxton was not, because he didn't have the money, because he just got through a bruising fight with the Republican senator, John Cornyn.
And the Republicans weren't out there either. And so, here we are, now we know that over $200 million has been spent by Republicans on Paxton's behalf. And I'm wondering what you make of all this. You were right a month ago, but then the big question becomes, is all this negative advertising that Republicans have funded against Talarico going to work?
O'Keefe: Yeah. Can money buy you a seat, basically? We don't know yet, but it's not surprising, because we had been anticipating, we'd been told by Republicans most of the year there will be money spent on Paxton. The issue is we don't want to have to spend as much as we are anticipating having to spend, because if John Cornyn had been the nominee, he'd probably be running away with this, or at least be in better shape, given that he's better known across the state, he's someone who had proven electoral history in Senate races, whereas Paxton does not.
It signals, and I think the polling has started to signal, that tightening that's happened is probably in part because Republicans are now being engaged, or they're hearing advertising and outreach digitally or on the air that triggers them and compels them to get off the couch and go cast their ballot as well.
We'll see, but what's been trickier, and part of the frustration of where you put money to win races this year, is those super PACs that are now doing so have to spend more money to reach people over conventional television, and even digitally, than in some cases the campaigns, because campaigns would have reserved the advertising time months ago at a lower rate. Just like if you book your flight months in advance, it's going to cost less than if you book it a week before.
So that's part of why the rest of us across the 49 other states have seen advertising for Texas during college and professional football games. Why is that? Because it's cheaper or easier for these super PACs to buy television advertising to the rest of the country than to try to just target the Dallas or the Houston or the Amarillo TV markets right now, because so many other campaigns and political organizations bought up all the airtime, reserving it months ago, making it either too expensive to buy a 30-second slot, or there's no inventory available.
It's like buying a car. It's like, again, buying tickets on a plane. That ad inventory is gone, so it costs a lot more, and that's what frustrates Republicans so much, because they knew they were going to have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas when they're not spending it in Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Alaska, North Carolina, races that would be cheaper and easier for them to defend.
Fink: Most of the ads on behalf of Paxton are negative, very critical of James Talarico, based comments that he has made on lot of social and cultural issues. And one question that I've asked the Republicans, not Paxton, because he doesn't do interviews with locals, but other Republican candidates: In a year that people are so focused on affordability, on the high price of fuel, diesel and gas, and food, and people are not happy about it, is that even going to matter?
And Anthony, I'm wondering, what do you think about that when you look at the polling? Does that matter this year, or is this year just so different where it doesn't really matter?
Salvanto: Well, it does matter to the extent that in Texas, much like the rest of the nation, you find people saying that prices have been a hardship, that high prices have been difficult for them. When you look at those folks, and then you look at who they're voting for, they are breaking towards Talarico. That is partly, of course, a candidate effect, but it's also a national effect.
And we see the same dynamic where folks nationwide, when they say prices have been a hardship, when in national polling, they think that the administration has not put enough focus on trying to lower prices, they are breaking towards the Democrats, and conceptually, that is something we have seen in the last couple of cycles. It happened in 2024, where people voted against the party then in power when they were concerned about the economy in crisis, and we see it happening again.
Having said that, we also take a look at personal qualities, or the voters' perceptions of personal qualities in this race, and you see that for Talarico voters, they are more likely to say that personal qualities matter a lot.
On the other side, we also ask your perceptions of the candidates, and for folks who believe that James Talarico is, in their minds, very liberal, they are voting overwhelmingly for Paxton. So, to your point about what kinds of ads you might see, what kinds of arguments you might see in Texas, again, with so many Republicans, that is a label, if you will, that if it is seen by the voters, that tends to make them break towards the Republicans. And so that's one of the ways you explain that dynamic in the campaign.
Fink: Ed, did you want to chime in on that? Just that notion of, do all these negative ads going after Talarico matter when affordability is so crucial?
O'Keefe: I do wonder, and I don't think we're really going to know until election night, and as we start to look at exit polling, and we hear from voters, just what was it? Look, if you're seeking a six-year job, you would think a candidate would want to tell people what they would do. And there are a handful of candidates on both sides who notably don't necessarily detail what they would do as a senator. I think we're seeing that across the board.
Some of that is because strategically, they believe, I am mostly selling you a vibe, I'm selling you a personality that will go to Washington on your behalf as a fighter, or as a stopgap against whatever's going on. And so we're seeing candidates on both sides that essentially just say, I'm not the other guy, right? Democrats have been doing this for years with Donald Trump. Republicans this year are trying to do it in a handful of situations with their Democratic opponents.
But you're right. If we're hearing month after month now for about a year that people are concerned about the cost of things, and what is it that Washington, if anything, can do, if you're not providing them some sense of that, even in 30 seconds, you have got to wonder if they'll tune it out. Or if they just look at these close numbers and go, all I need is that small percentage of folks out there who need to be reminded that Talarico is way too liberal for Texas to feel compelled to fill out their ballot or go vote on Election Day. That may be what the calculation is. It may cost a lot of money to do it. But in a state like yours, as big as it is, with 1% of the vote being tens or hundreds of thousands of people, that may be money worth spending.
Salvanto: Picking up on that point, of course, that Texas is very big, and I'm stating the obvious, but I'm also stating a way to interpret or read the polls.
When you see a one- or two-point difference or move in the polls, that translates to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of voters, and so that's why it costs so much. And does either campaign have the organization and mobilization ability to move that? It's just not the same as it is in other smaller states. So, you see those one- or two-point shifts in the polling in Texas, that's a lot of people.
O'Keefe: And that's why, when I have conversations either with Texas Democrats or Democrats across the country about this, and they're like, look, he's winning by two points, or thinks he's gonna pull it off. You say to yourself, okay, but remember, one or two percentage points could be as many as 100,000 to 150,000 voters. Where are you as Democrats going to find those voters when traditionally you haven't been able to in statewide races? And that's where they kind of step back and go, okay, good point.
And so he's gambling again on certain Republicans, large numbers of them, not voting in the Senate race, or willing to be like Republicans like Neil Bush this week, who said, I've been a lifelong Republican, but I can't stand Ken Paxton, so I'm going to go vote for James Talarico. Are there 100,000 Neil Bushes in Texas? If there are, James Talarico probably can pull it off.
But even then, he's got to get independents, and he's got to hope that the Rio Grande Valley goes blue, and that the four counties there in the Dallas area all go blue. And that's a high order, and it costs a lot of money.
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