Dem
47
GOP
53
Emerson is back from its holiday break, and has released a new poll of the U.S. Senate primaries in Texas. The biggest news is on the Democratic side of the contest, as the pollster thinks state Rep. James Talarico has a well-outside-the-margin-of-error 9-point lead over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 47% to 38%.
This marks a dramatic shift from the two previous polls of the Talarico-Crockett matchup. In December, Texas Southern University had Crockett up by 8, 51% to 43%. And in September, that same pollster (in partnership with the University of Houston) had her up 18, 52% to 34%. It's only three polls, of course, and it's the time in the cycle where wonky results are to be expected. However, +18 to +8 to -9 is a very worrisome trendline for the Crockett campaign. And since Talarico was much lower profile when he jumped in, there is a built-in, very plausible explanation for these numbers, namely that Democratic voters in Texas are getting to know him and they like what they see. There's a candidates debate next week, and that will surely be followed by more polling. So, we'll be very interested to see what the numbers say in February.
Emerson also polled the other side of the contest, and that one's jumping, as well. On the whole, the matchup between basically normal Republican Sen. John Cornyn and crazypants MAGA Republican Ken Paxton has been a dead heat. Emerson agrees; they have Cornyn with the backing of 28% of GOP primary voters, as compared to 27% for Paxton. That, of course, only accounts for 55% of the voters. In part, that is because 29% say they are undecided. But in part, that is because there is a third candidate in the race, Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Hunt's polling is also very consistent; he's generally about 10 points behind the other candidates. So it is with the new Emerson poll, he drew the support of 16% of primary voters. Hunt is not going to get the nomination, but he could be in a position to play kingmaker if and when he withdraws. The Republican establishment badly wants Cornyn to be the nominee, since he's more electable, and could give Hunt many and varied inducements to try to persuade him to back the Senator. On the other hand, Hunt is much more ideologically aligned with Paxton. So, if he does bow out, his endorsement could go either way. It is also worth pointing out that Texas requires primary winners to claim a majority of the vote, and conducts a top-two runoff if that does not happen in the first round of voting. That means that Hunt could, and probably will, be ejected from the race by Texas voters. If he hasn't already thrown his support behind one of his two rivals, there will be much competition for his endorsement.
The first round of primary voting is on March 5, so we're going to get some amount of clarity in just 6 weeks. (Z)