Even Trafalgar Group, a pollster known for its Republican-friendly results, now has Democrat James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race.
Trafalgar’s chief pollster, Robert Cahaly, released the survey on Saturday. Talarico leads Paxton 47.1 percent to 43.6 percent, with Libertarian Ted Brown at 1.8 percent and 7.6 percent undecided. The poll surveyed 1,086 likely voters from Oct. 6 to 8 and has a 2.9-point margin of error.
Election watchers were stunned.
“THERE AINT NO WAY. TRAFALGAR?” wrote elections researcher Joe, who posts as @electionsjoe.
“Wait! TRAFALGAR has Talarico up?” wrote Democratic strategist Eric Michael Garcia.
“Oh wow,” wrote columnist Molly Jong-Fast.
Armin Thomas, a co-founder of the election analysis site Split Ticket, suggested that Trafalgar might be “trying to engineer a comeback narrative for Paxton in the last week.”
“If they can’t get Paxton to beat a guy who was dead for two weeks, maybe he really is done!” he wrote.
That was a jab at Talarico’s recent absence from the campaign trail. Donald Trump tried to turn it into a “MISSING IN ACTION” attack. The Washington Post reported Friday that Talarico has since returned after being sick.
According to one tracker, Talarico’s lead has grown 2.3 points since Trafalgar’s September poll. Former Biden adviser Neera Tanden noted that the gain came even as GOP super PACs flooded the airwaves.
“If this poll is accurate (and who knows with Trafalgar) it would mean that the Talarico’s lead is expanding as the Senate GOP superpacs have unloaded like $100 million in ads on the air,” Tanden wrote. “Perhaps their donors realize they are burning their cash.”
The poll is the latest bad news for Paxton. A CNN analysis this week found him trailing by as much as 6 points in three separate polls.
