Tag Archives: James Talarico

More Texas News in the Spotlight:
Latest Senate, Redistricting Updates

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Nov. 24, 2025

New polling data was just released in Texas that confirms what many observers have opined about the Lone Star State’s US Senate campaign, and a scathing dissent from one of the three-judge panel members who heard the latest redistricting case could pave the way for a Supreme Court stay.

Senate

Texas state flag

Ragnar Research (Nov. 12-17; 1,000 likely Texas voters; live interview) released a new Texas US Senate poll that supports the common political supposition pertaining to the Lone Star State Senate race. That is, Sen. John Cornyn (R) would lead both 2024 Senate nominee and ex-Congressman Colin Allred (D) and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin), but Attorney General Ken Paxton would be in danger of losing the general election.

In this poll, Sen. Cornyn leads Allred 47-40 percent and Talarico by a similar 46-40 percent split, both beyond the polling margin of error. As predicted, the two Democrats fare better against Paxton. Allred would lead 44-43 percent, and Rep. Talarico would tie the scandal-tainted AG at 44-44 percent.

The third announced Republican in the race, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Houston), was not tested, nor was Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) on the Democratic side. Crockett has been leading in other Texas Democratic statewide primary polls but has not yet made a decision about whether to enter the Senate race.

The latest judicial redistricting ruling from the El Paso three-judge panel suggests Rep. Crockett may stay in the House since the 2025 Texas map invalidation restores her 30th Congressional District to its previous boundaries.

According to Ragnar Research partner Chris Perkins, who conducted this poll, wrote “John Cornyn is the strongest candidate for Republicans in a general election, as he has a clear lead. Paxton is statistically tied with either of the Democrat candidates and jeopardizes the ability of Republicans to hold the seat.”

The Texas Senate race is one of the key focal points of the 2026 election cycle. It will be perhaps the only Senate contest that features a contested primary in both parties along with a highly competitive general election.

Redistricting

Fifth District Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, a member of the three-judge panel that invalidated the 2025 Texas redistricting map as a racial gerrymander over his objection, published a scathing dissent to the ruling. In his document, Judge Smith referred to lead Judge Jeffrey Brown’s decision as “the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed.” Judge Smith stated that he has been a federal judge for 37 years.

The dissent opinion begins by saying that, “the main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom. The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.”

Throughout a 104-page document, Judge Smith details 11 different examples of how ruling that the 2025 Texas map is a racial gerrymander is either “false, misleading, deeply misleading, or deceptive.”

The state of Texas has already appealed, asking that the current ruling be stayed. Appealing a three-judge panel decision goes directly to the US Supreme Court and an official answer must be rendered. The justice assigned to oversee the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which Texas resides, is Samuel Alito. The justices have the individual power to issue stays on cases from the circuits in which they oversee.

If Justice Alito were to grant a stay on the Brown panel redistricting ruling, the 2025 map would return as the official Texas map. With candidate filing closing on Dec. 8, a quick ruling on the stay motion is imperative since the two maps are radically different in 11 of Texas’ 38 congressional districts.

Allred’s Texas Primary Trouble

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

Senate

Former Texas Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) / Photo: ReformAustin.org

Former Congressman Colin Allred ran a strong 2024 Texas US Senate campaign and was one of the nation’s top campaign fundraisers, but a new university survey finds him trailing an entire field of 2026 announced and potential Democratic candidates in the statewide party primary.

The surprising poll result comes from a rather exhaustive study from a pair of Lone Star State universities who partnered in conducting the survey. The academic institutions are the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, and the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University.

According to the queries asked of a sampling universe of likely Democratic primary voters, Allred’s preference figure ranks behind Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas); former Congressman, ex-presidential and previous Texas statewide candidate Beto O’Rourke; and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin).

Allred and state Rep. Talarico are announced Senate candidates. Both Rep. Crockett and O’Rourke confirm they are considering joining the race. Crockett has intensified her interest in the Senate race after the new Texas redistricting map placed her home outside of the new TX-30 district, while O’Rourke has seemingly appeared less interested about joining the race in recent weeks.

With a March 3 primary schedule, final decisions will soon be made. Considering the kind of polling data we are seeing in this survey, it is plausible that Crockett and maybe even O’Rourke will look more favorably toward entering the Senate race.

The two university survey research teams polled 1,650 YouGov respondents between Sept. 19 and Oct. 1. The sampling universe was then winnowed to include 478 likely Democratic primary voters and 576 likely Republican primary voters. The pollsters do not indicate the method in which the interviews were conducted.

The large sample size, and the fact that they used the online pollster YouGov’s pre-identified respondents, suggest the poll was administered online. The notation, however, that the interviews were conducted in English and Spanish leads one to believe that the data responses were from live interviews. A combination of the two methodologies is also possible.

The Republican ballot test — understanding that this poll was conducted prior to Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Houston) officially becoming a GOP Senate candidate — adds little new information. The addition of Hunt leads to the conclusion that the Republican primary will produce two runoff participants, likely Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. This university data fails to suggest otherwise.

The interesting information comes from the Democratic responses. While Allred was commonly viewed as the leading 2026 Democratic Senate candidate based upon his 2024 performance where he raised almost $95 million and ran close to Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in polling until the closing days, the university survey’s likely Democratic voter base unexpectedly places him at the bottom of the list.

According to the ballot test results, Rep. Crockett leads state Rep. Talarico, former Congressman O’Rourke, and Mr. Allred, 31-25-25-13 percent.

To make matters worse for Allred, he also does very poorly when the likely Democratic respondent pool was segmented. Among, men, women, whites, Latinos, Baby Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Z, those with some college, those with an advanced graduate degree, those who self-identify as Democrats, and those who consider themselves Independent but will vote in the coming Democratic primary, Allred places last among the candidates and potential candidates.

Only among blacks and those with a high school degree does Allred finish either tied or ahead of one of the others. Among blacks, Allred and O’Rourke are tied at 16 percent preference. State Rep. Talarico draws 17 percent, and Rep. Crockett leads the group with 45 percent support. In the high school graduate segment, Allred nips Talarico, 15-14 percent. Crockett leads within this segment with 33 percent followed by O’Rourke’s 31 percent preference figure.

While the recent entrance of Rep. Hunt has attracted greater attention to the Republican side of the ’26 Senate race, this new university poll finding Colin Allred dropping to last place within a Democratic likely voter pool could be the precursor to seeing a trajectory change within the party primary.