I may regret writing this in two months. But Ken Paxton isn't the kind of candidate voters get shy about, then forgive; he's the kind they can't come home to.
I may regret writing this in two months. But Ken Paxton isn't the kind of candidate voters get shy about, then forgive; he's the kind they can't come home to.
(Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Nobody wants to jinx anything, and nobody wants to look stupid.
This is why Democrats can’t quite accept that they’re frontrunners in the Texas Senate race, and election forecasters don’t just look at the polls and say “lean blue.”
I’m right there with them, knocking on all the wood. But I can’t help but notice the agreement among pollsters.
And I think it’s worth it at this point for Democrats to ask themselves whether the polls might be right, and, if so, why. What might this data be telling us about how Texans view their options? How might we lean into that theory of the case?
The alternative case is simple: Texas is very red, and the Republicans who live there seem particularly hostile to liberal politics. Every time Democrats have convinced themselves this is the year they’ll break the cycle of defeat, they come up short. Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign was basically perfect, and his opponent, Ted Cruz, is a toad, and Dems still lost by a couple points.
Here’s the basis for these doubts, stated more intelligently:
Dj
@DjsokeSpeaking
Just wanna put it out there that I do think there is a bit of a shy voter effect for Paxton, à la Jay Jones This is still a good poll for JT, but Paxton is in the mid-low 40s way too often in polling and that’s just not realistic
Patrick Svitek@PatrickSvitek
New AARP poll of Texas by Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D): #TXSEN Talarico (D) 48 Paxton (R) 44 #TXGOV Abbott (inc.) (R) 49 Hinojosa (D) 46 (Aug. 30-Sept. 1; 895 LVs; +/-3.3%) https://t.co/n7KCv81HzV
4:16 PM · Sep 10, 2026 · 59.1K Views
26 Replies · 27 Reposts · 337 Likes
I don’t necessarily think this is wrong—I don’t know what’s going to happen any more than anyone else. But I do want to put forth the best case that this polling could be accurate. Because the race you run if you think Texans are merely too embarrassed to say they’ll vote for Ken Paxton, and the one you run if you think they’ll decide he’s genuinely unacceptable, aren’t necessarily the same.
