Paxton vs. Talarico: Five things to watch in Texas’ tight U.S. Senate race

WASHINGTON — Texas is heading into Election Day with polls showing Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico within the margin of error in the U.S. Senate race.

Paxton, the three-term state attorney general, and Talarico, an Austin state legislator, have spent the final weeks crisscrossing the state trying to turn out the faithful, convert the skeptical and cast each other as unfit.

The Texas Tribune has spent the midterms reporting on the people and places both candidates are feverishly courting: supporters of Sen. John Cornyn still on the fence, rural voters frustrated over data centers, Latino voters along the border and suburban voters in the critical Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Those voting blocs are among the many factors that will shape Texas’ Senate outcome. Here are five trends we’ll be tracking as returns come in Tuesday.

Do Latinos — especially in South Texas — swing back?

Heavily Hispanic South Texas delivered Republicans a breakthrough two years ago. Polling of the region suggests the pendulum is about to swing back to the left. The question is by how much.

In 2024, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee in decades to carry Cameron, Hidalgo and Webb counties — three of the four biggest population centers on the border, home to Brownsville, McAllen and Laredo, respectively. Sen. Ted Cruz narrowly lost all three while pulling between 44% and 47% of the vote.

The shift was starker in places like Starr County, home to Rio Grande City and a 97% Latino population, which swung 76 percentage points toward Trump from his first run in 2016.

Even if South Texas shifts leftward, Talarico may find it a tall order to turn the clock back to 2016. Hillary Clinton won 64% of the vote in Cameron County, 68% in Hidalgo County and 73% in Webb County; both parties believe Republicans have established a higher baseline in the region from their gains in the years since.

That’s exactly what Paxton is counting on. South Texas’ population is dwarfed by other regions, so a more muted shift back to 2022-type numbers — or even to 2020, when Trump won between 38% and 43% in the three big border counties — could be enough.

The early vote turnout in South Texas was robust. In Hidalgo, Starr and Webb counties, more early voters cast ballots this year than in 2024, a presidential year when turnout tends to be higher.

South Texas may be the most obvious place to watch the Latino vote, but most Latino voters — who comprise over 30% of Texas’ eligible electorate — live in the major urban metros. And it wasn’t just places like Hidalgo County that saw an early voting surge: Hispanic voters made up 19% of the statewide early electorate, according to GOP data guru Derek Ryan, up from 16% in 2022 and 17% in 2024.

If Latino voters shift toward Talarico — either through better turnout among Latino Democrats or crossover from Latinos who voted for Trump — it should show up in majority-Latino Bexar and El Paso counties. Democrats’ 2024 Senate candidate, Colin Allred, won 55.6% and 57.9% in those counties, respectively, on his way to losing the state by 8.5 points. Talarico will need to beat those numbers.

Watch heavily Latino precincts in other urban and suburban areas too, including turnout in Houston’s East End or Fort Worth’s Northside.

The margins in Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties

Every statewide candidate in Texas will be closely watching Tarrant County and the suburbs north of Dallas, areas that are up for grabs, home to lots of voters and quickly adding more of them. They are also where a lot of pivotal trends converge: increased racial diversity, fast-growing red exurbs and outsize numbers of country club Cornyn-supporting conservatives.

In 2024, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties collectively accounted for close to 16% of the vote in Texas — and unlike neighboring Dallas County, all three are in play for both parties. The trio went for Trump by margins of 5, 11 and 13 percentage points, making all of them more Democratic than the overall state.

If that remains the case this year, Talarico would expect to be winning these counties Tuesday night — with a substantial margin in Tarrant — if he is up statewide. A close result in Tarrant County would be a good sign for Paxton.

Talarico’s path to flipping the North Texas suburbs runs in part through frustrated Cornyn supporters, given their strength in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro. When Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties are combined, Cornyn won 44.6% of the vote there in the March primary, better than his 42% statewide. Whether they come home for Paxton, skip the race or cross over to Talarico could move the region.

Paxton will want strong numbers in redder suburbs Celina, Colleyville and Keller. A leftward shift in purple places like Coppell and Frisco, or light-red ones like Bedford and Paxton’s hometown of McKinney, would be a good sign for Talarico.

The region also has a large Asian American population, particularly in Collin County, which is more than one-fifth Asian American and heavily Indian American. After months of anti-Indian attacks from GOP activists with little pushback from party officials, Indian American voters in Frisco and West Plano will be a key constituency to watch on Tuesday.

Will Talarico hit 60% in Harris County?

Democratic Senate candidates have carried Harris County for the last decade, but mere victory in Texas’ most populous county is not enough to take the state.

In 2018, Beto O’Rourke won about 58% of the vote there en route to losing statewide by 2.6 percentage points. No Democrat has matched his Harris share since — Joe Biden came closest in 2020, two points behind.

Those extra two points alone in Harris County would not have won O’Rourke the state in 2018. But given the mid-50s ceiling Democrats keep hitting in Harris County, crossing that 60% threshold would indicate Talarico is outperforming his predecessors all over Harris County’s diverse electorate, in both the city of Houston and the county’s ever-sprawling suburbs.

For Paxton, keeping Talarico as far below 60% as possible improves his odds. That’ll mean holding onto Harris County Latinos — VoteHub estimates Trump won 45% of them in 2024 — and turning out voters in redder parts of the county, such as Cypress, Lake Houston and Tomball.

There’s also the matter of how many voters turn out, in a county that has seen its voter rolls grow by more than 17% since 2018. That year, over 51% of Harris County voters showed up — a high mark for a midterm — and the county made up 14.4% of the statewide electorate. In 2022, turnout in Harris County fell, and the county made up a smaller share of the overall vote.

Early voting shows Harris County, like the rest of the state, trending toward higher turnout this time. Fourteen percent of early voters come from Harris County, and its early turnout rate of 39% is much higher than 2022’s 29%. But the county still saw a lower percentage of its registered voters turn out compared to its big blue peers of Dallas, Bexar and Travis.

One of Talarico’s surest paths to 60% would be to boost turnout in the majority-Black precincts in and around Houston, which typically back Democrats strongly. He performed poorly in the primary with Black voters, who voted overwhelmingly for U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and he has faced criticism for his community engagement. To that end, he announced a $25 million Black voter turnout initiative in September.

On election night, look for returns in the Acres Homes, Sunnyside and Third Ward neighborhoods, or check on turnout in the majority-Black 18th Congressional District or plurality-Black County Commissioner Precinct 1.

Will rural Texas turn up for the GOP?

For decades, Republicans have relied on Texas’ scores of rural counties as a red firewall.

In much of East and West Texas, they have reliably drawn 80% of the vote or more, piling up net votes to offset Democratic margins in the cities. Cruz won more than 80% of the vote in 104 counties in 2024, recreating what served as a critical bulwark for him six years earlier, when he won rural counties by a nearly 53-point margin en route to his narrow statewide victory.

But frustration over data centers, water access and the cost of unfettered growth is brewing in these areas. Voting for a Democrat may be anathema to most rural voters, but if discontent keeps some Republicans home, Talarico could shave a few points off Paxton’s margins in parts of rural Texas.

On election night, keep an eye on Hale, Hood, Fisher and Navarro counties — where Cruz got between 70% and 80% of the vote — and Briscoe, Carson and Shackelford counties, where he got close to 90%.

All of those counties are rural, and all have large existing or proposed data centers — a sore spot for some local residents. If Paxton holds close to Cruz’s margins, that’s a good sign for him. If Talarico is running a few points ahead of Colin Allred, that could matter on the margins in a close race.

The Libertarian and undervote spoiler

Voters who dislike both Talarico and Paxton — “double haters” — have a third option. They can vote for Libertarian candidate Ted Brown, who received 2.4% of the vote in the 2024 Senate race.

In October polling, Brown has typically come in between 1% and 3%, and crosstabs show him attracting more independents and Republicans than Democrats.

If Brown pulls similar numbers this time, Paxton or Talarico could win without hitting 50%. That’s a real possibility, given that neither of them are polling at 50% on average.

Some conservative-leaning voters are also skipping the Senate race altogether in protest of Paxton’s candidacy, while still voting for Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans. That’s another group that could matter in a close race.

As the race atop of the ticket, the U.S. Senate contest should draw the most votes. But if the governor’s race ends up having more ballots cast, or if there’s a big gap between Abbott’s and Paxton’s vote shares, that could be another signal the “double haters” are making an impact.

Linda Misenheimer, a 72-year-old from El Paso, is an independent who leans conservative and voted for Trump in 2024. She voted for Cornyn in the primary and was dismayed when Paxton won.

In the general election, Misenheimer voted for Abbott but left the Senate race blank on her ballot. Talarico is too liberal, she said, and Paxton is too loyal to the GOP over his constituents. And she felt she didn’t know enough about Brown.

“To be honest, in good conscience, I could not vote for any of the three,” Misenheimer said.