Texas · U.S. Senate
TX Class 2 Senate seat
Coverage: this seat is included in the 2026 national listing.
Candidate source
Candidate source: Texas Secretary of State, Elections Division — Ballot Certification Report - 2026 November General Election (November 03, 2026), certified 08/28/2026 by Deputy Secretary of State Dave Nelson (retrieved 2026-09-28). Absence of a candidate row is never evidence that a race has no candidates.
How the candidate list was checked
Rows read from the official source: 1448 · published here: 93 · left out by rule: 1355 · held back for review: 0. ballot-cert is a per-county report (254 counties); the same contest repeats across county pages, so source_rows_seen counts page-level federal candidate entries; unique (office, district, name, party) emitted after dedupe. 6 additional federal rows from 2026-write-In-ballot-cert.pdf emitted as write_in status. Party labels as printed: REP/DEM/LIB/GRE/IND. Two-column county layouts (e.g. Harris) parsed via text-position reconstruction; octal escapes decoded (e.g. PEÑA).
Hot Races · statewide: Tightly polled: the current poll average is D+2.6, within 5 points. Neither is a forecast of this race. How the list works
Boundaries and sources
County–district classifications come from official block-assignment files, cross-checked against Census representations; render geometry is display-only.
Current officeholder
The current officeholder has not been confirmed in this edition. This does not establish that the seat is vacant.
Upcoming contests
2026-11-03 — general
Avery Ayers
Declared write-in candidacy
Bradford "Brad" Hall
Declared write-in candidacy
JAMES TALARICO · DEM
Qualified for the general-election ballot
Jade Simmons
Declared write-in candidacy
KEN PAXTON · REP
Qualified for the general-election ballot
TED BROWN · LIB
Qualified for the general-election ballot
Zul Mohamed
Declared write-in candidacy
Polling
D+2.6 — James Talarico (Democrat) against Ken Paxton (Republican), averaging each pollster’s latest poll in the 30 days to October 7, 2026: 6 polls from 6 pollsters. Within 5 points: this race is on the Hot Races list as tightly polled.
A poll average describes what recent surveys found. Each poll has its own sampling error, larger for smaller samples. The average is not a forecast and not a probability. Matchup: certified candidate list. 14 polls in the source were left out: party-sponsored or internal polls, other matchups, duplicate versions of the same poll, or polls missing who was surveyed.
All 29 polls
| Pollster | Fieldwork | Sample | James Talarico | Ken Paxton | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research for Fox News | September 24, 2026 – September 28, 2026 | 881 likely voters | 51% | 49% | D+2.0 |
| Slingshot Strategies for Texas Public Opinion Research | September 19, 2026 – September 22, 2026 | 1,007 likely voters | 49% | 45% | D+4.0 |
| Texas Southern University Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center | September 15, 2026 – September 19, 2026 | 1,800 likely voters | 47% | 46% | D+1.0 |
| Emerson College for Nexstar Media | September 12, 2026 – September 14, 2026 | 1,000 likely voters | 47% | 46% | D+1.0 |
| ReconMR/Siena University | September 8, 2026 – September 11, 2026 | 614 likely voters | 49% | 43% | D+6.0 |
| InsiderAdvantage | September 8, 2026 – September 9, 2026 | 1,200 likely voters | 47.1% | 45.6% | D+1.5 |
| YouGov for Univision | August 27, 2026 – September 4, 2026 | 1,000 registered voters | 48% | 43% | D+5.0 |
| Fabrizio Ward/Impact Research | August 30, 2026 – September 1, 2026 | 895 likely voters | 48% | 44% | D+4.0 |
| Slingshot Strategies for Texas Public Opinion Research | August 21, 2026 – August 24, 2026 | 1,000 likely voters | 48% | 42% | D+6.0 |
| The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin/YouGov | August 5, 2026 – August 13, 2026 | 1,218 registered voters | 42% | 39% | D+3.0 |
| Emerson College for Nexstar Media | August 9, 2026 – August 10, 2026 | 1,000 likely voters | 46% | 47% | R+1.0 |
| Wedgewood Polls | July 30, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 800 likely voters | 48% | 46% | D+2.0 |
| Texas Southern University Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center | July 27, 2026 – July 30, 2026 | 1,200 likely voters | 47% | 45% | D+2.0 |
| ReconMR/Siena University for Texas A&M University Bush School of Government & Public Service | July 27, 2026 – July 30, 2026 | 619 likely voters | 47% | 43% | D+4.0 |
| Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research for Fox News | July 23, 2026 – July 27, 2026 | 1,006 registered voters | 51% | 48% | D+3.0 |
| Slingshot Strategies for Texas Public Opinion Research | July 15, 2026 – July 17, 2026 | 1,048 likely voters | 45% | 40% | D+5.0 |
| A2 Insights | June 23, 2026 – June 28, 2026 | 618 likely voters | 48.4% | 46.1% | D+2.3 |
| The New York Times/Siena University | June 19, 2026 – June 27, 2026 | 656 likely voters | 47% | 47% | D+0.0 |
| Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas/YouGov | June 5, 2026 – June 12, 2026 | 1,200 registered voters | 42% | 43% | R+1.0 |
| ReconMR/Siena University for Texas A&M University Bush School of Government & Public Service | June 1, 2026 – June 4, 2026 | 807 likely voters | 47% | 44% | D+3.0 |
| Quantus Insights | June 3, 2026 – June 4, 2026 | 800 likely voters | 43% | 45% | R+2.0 |
| Texas Southern University Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center | April 22, 2026 – May 6, 2026 | 1,223 likely voters | 45% | 45% | D+0.0 |
| YouGov for University of Texas | April 10, 2026 – April 20, 2026 | 1,200 registered voters | 42% | 34% | D+8.0 |
| Texas Public Opinion Research | April 17, 2026 – April 20, 2026 | 1,018 likely voters | 46% | 41% | D+5.0 |
| Impact Research for James Talarico | March 12, 2026 – March 17, 2026 | 900 likely voters | 44% | 43% | D+1.0 |
| University of Houston/YouGov | January 20, 2026 – January 31, 2026 | 1,502 likely voters | 44% | 46% | R+2.0 |
| Emerson College | January 10, 2026 – January 12, 2026 | 1,165 registered voters | 45.6% | 45.6% | D+0.0 |
| University of Houston/Texas Southern University | September 19, 2025 – October 1, 2025 | 1,650 registered voters | 46% | 49% | R+3.0 |
| University of Texas at Tyler | September 17, 2025 – September 24, 2025 | 1,032 registered voters | 37% | 38% | R+1.0 |
PrivateVoteHub Polls from the VoteHub Polling API, retrieved October 7, 2026, used under CC BY 4.0. How polls are chosen
Economic profile of the state this seat represents
FederalCensus Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 (5-year) · survey period 2020-2024 · State of Texas
- Median household income$78,476± $263
- Poverty rate13.8%± 0.1 ppPopulation for whom poverty status is determined
- Rent burden (30%+ of income on gross rent)51.7%± 0.3 ppRenter-occupied households paying cash rent for which rent burden is computed
- Homeownership rate62.6%± 0.3 ppOccupied housing units
- Bachelor's degree or higher (age 25+)33.8%± 0.2 ppPopulation 25 years and over
Technical definitions (ACS tables)
- Rent burden (30%+ of income on gross rent)
- Renter-occupied households paying cash rent for which rent burden is computed: B25070_001 minus B25070_011 (Not computed)
This seat's geography is exactly coterminous with its state (or the District), so the state estimates from the same edition apply directly.
Structural five-year survey conditions — not current monthly conditions. Uncertainties are 90% margins of error: the published ACS margin for median income; Census-formula approximations (ACS handbook ch. 8) for the rates. “Margin unavailable” means the source supplies no usable margin — never zero.
Campaign finances
2025-2026 two-year period (FEC cycle 2026). Committee totals are the FEC’s own candidate-level aggregation — never summed from committee rows here. Independent spending is reported separately and is never part of a candidate’s receipts. An FEC registration is not proof of ballot qualification; candidacy status comes verbatim from the accepted release.
General election · November 3, 2026
“No matching FEC candidate record” means no filing was located — it is never evidence that a candidacy does not exist, and never a ballot-status claim. Candidates’ coverage dates can differ; each row carries its own.
Current officeholder — Congress.gov context
John Cornyn · Republican · Texas · served in 13 Congresses since 2002
Identity verified against the official Congress.gov member record (Bioguide C001056), recorded through 2026-10-04T02:54:23Z. Current officeholding is separate from 2026 candidacy status. Official member website.
Recent housing, employment, energy and infrastructure legislation
From the member's sponsored then cosponsored legislation lists (newest first, limit 30 each), the newest items whose CONFIRMED official legislative subjects intersect {Housing and Community Development, Labor and Employment, Energy, Transportation and Public Works, Water Resources Development} are selected, at most 3 sponsored and 2 cosponsored, 5 total. Items whose relevance cannot be confirmed via the official /subjects endpoint are omitted.
- S.5028-119 — Ratepayer Protection Actcosponsor latest action 2026-07-16: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. · subjects: Energy
- S.5352-119 — Desalination Reauthorization Actcosponsor latest action 2026-09-30: Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably. · subjects: Water Resources Development
Sponsorship is a record of introduction or support — not passage, effectiveness, or economic impact.
Counties and this district
County boundaries for this seat are not published in this release. Explore individual counties on the county map.