A Texas Southern University poll puts James Talarico two points up on Ken Paxton. Does Talarico win the Senate seat on Nov 3?

James Talarico won Texas's U.S. Senate race on November 3, 2026, defeating Republican Ken Paxton after a campaign in which late polling, including a Texas Southern University survey showing Talarico ahead by two points, pointed to a genuinely competitive contest. The Associated Press called the race for Talarico at approximately 10:04 p.m. CT; unofficial returns from the Texas Secretary of State later put his share at roughly 55% of the vote, a wider margin than the final pre-election polling had suggested.

Paxton, the state's attorney general, had won a bruising May 26 Republican primary runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn by 28 points, aided by a late Trump endorsement, but he entered the general election weighed down by long-standing securities-fraud charges and a 2023 impeachment trial that Democrats cited throughout the fall campaign.

The win marked the first time since 1988 that Texas elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, ending more than three decades in which Republicans had swept every statewide race. The prediction market leaned correctly toward Talarico on this question, with 67% of recorded votes favoring a win, consistent with the eventual outcome.