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Paxton trails Talarico by 2 points in new Texas Senate poll

The Hill · back to the audit

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for Senate in the Lone Star State, is trailing Democrat James Talarico by 2 points in new polling of the closely watched race.

A survey from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University found Talarico leading with 47 percent support to Paxton's 45 percent, just within the margin of error. Another 6 percent of respondents were undecided, and 2 percent chose another candidate.

Talarico was viewed favorably by 46 percent and unfavorably by 47 percent of voters in the poll, while Paxton was viewed favorably by 39 percent and unfavorably by 57 percent. Only 7 and 4 percent, respectively, said they didn't know enough about Talarico or Paxton to form an opinion.

The new results come just days after a Fox News poll showed Talarico up by 3 points over Paxton, the latest encouraging sign for Democrats as they eye a rare Senate flip in the red state.

Decision Desk HQ rates the race a toss-up, forecasting that Paxton is only narrowly favored to win in November and keep the seat in Republican hands.

In the Texas Southern University poll, Trump was viewed unfavorably by 55 percent of Texans likely to vote in November, compared with 44 percent who viewed him favorably.

The survey was conducted July 27-30 among 1,200 Texans who are likely to cast a ballot in the general election, and the margin of error was 2.83 percentage points.