Republicans in Texas face headwinds in federal and state elections, with the U.S. Senate race a toss-up and popular incumbents such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott facing tight races.
Traditionally, midterms have rarely favored the party in power in Washington, but polls show down-ballot Republicans in Texas struggling this election cycle as well.
Some analysts attribute the GOP’s difficulties in Texas to eroding support for Trump among Hispanic voters and frustration over high gas and grocery prices. Others contend that Republicans aren’t as bad off as polls suggest.
Republicans face perhaps their biggest challenge in nearly a decade to hold on to the U.S. Senate.
While President Donald Trump has endorsed Senate candidate Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general has faced scrutiny over an affair, a divorce, and a 2023 impeachment by the Texas House, which ended in acquittal by the Senate.
State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, faces his own headwinds. He portrays himself as a progressive Christian who supports abortion and transgender advocacy for children, and he once called God “nonbinary” on the Texas House floor.
Statewide races are no less contentious. Democrats are seeking to use their midterm advantage to oust incumbent Republicans such as Abbott and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Abbott has faced criticism for his early support of data centers, with one analyst saying it likely hurt his grassroots support. His Democratic opponent, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, has embraced public opposition to data centers in her campaign.
Texas Democratic state Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa speaks at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 27, 2026. (Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
Jeff Burton, a founding partner at Maven Advocacy Partners in Austin, Texas, and longtime GOP strategist, said Abbott’s previous support for data centers likely hurt him.
Hinojosa blames Republicans for higher gas and grocery prices. Abbott has campaigned on Texas’s pro-business environment, border security, and lower property taxes.
Voter Motivation
Republicans who filled an airport hangar during Paxton’s October campaign stop in conservative Rockwall, Texas, didn’t appear fazed by negative polling. Several said they were enthusiastic and considered it important to vote red.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, speaks during a campaign stop in Rockwall, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2026. (Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
Bill England, a 70-year-old retired Navy veteran, told The Epoch Times that he’s against socialism, high taxes, and gun control on the left. He said he also made sure that his conservative friends and neighbors voted.
“Talarico is not a Democrat. He’s a socialist,” England told The Epoch Times. “I spent 21 years of my life fighting socialists. So I’m sure as hell not going to put one in office.”
England said Americans should be thankful that Trump stopped Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
“People in New York and New Jersey and Virginia and, you know, all those ... liberal states we have up there should be thanking [Trump], because if he hadn’t done anything, by this time [Iran] would already have a nuclear weapon,” England said. “In six months, they’d have a missile they could send straight into downtown New York.”
David Block, a supporter of Texas Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, poses with the tour bus at the kickoff bus tour event in Rockwall, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2026. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
Robin Shipman drove 35 miles to attend Paxton’s rally. She said people are mistaken if they think that Republicans aren’t going to vote.
“I loved that it was almost like a prayer meeting, and he backs what I back: faith, freedom, the American way, Texas, and family,” Shipman told The Epoch Times.
“If we don’t fight for what we believe in, we are going to lose our country.”
David Block of Rockwall told The Epoch Times that Paxton better reflects his Christian values and will likely have strong support in rural areas.
“I think this is going to be another Beto O’Rourke scenario,” he said.
Texas Democratic Senate candidate State Rep. James Talarico speaks to supporters during a rally at the University of Texas in Austin on Oct. 23, 2026. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)
Block referred to the surprisingly close 2018 midterm race for U.S. Senate in Texas between Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke and incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, who won.
Talarico supporters said they liked his position on lowering prices and feel that Paxton doesn’t do enough to support them and their families.
“My mom’s a diabetic,” Allyson Marin, a student at nearby Texas State University, told The Epoch Times in mid-October. “It helps a lot if the prices are lower.”
At a coffee shop in San Marcos, Texas, Allison Ekrot told The Epoch Times that she supports Talarico because of his policies and what he stands for.
She said Paxton uses insulting rhetoric and “doesn’t seem to actually do anything.”
Supporters of Texas Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton pose with a President Donald Trump cut-out at Paxton’s kickoff bus tour event in Rockwall, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2026. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
Hispanic Tug-of-War
Abbott’s challenger, Hinojosa, drew a sizable Hispanic crowd during a late October rally in Fort Worth, Texas. Her campaign has been focused on winning Latino voters’ support.
Samuel Infante, 21, was one such Latino who favored a Democratic governor.
After the rally, he told The Epoch Times that he voted for Hinojosa. As a first-time voter, he said, he was worried about high gas and grocery prices and school choice hurting public schools.
As a college student, Infante said, he liked Hinojosa’s promise to pay Texans a $1,500 tax refund from the state’s Rainy Day Fund.
“I’m starting my future off. I’m going to school. I got student loans. I can’t afford all that, and she’s promising me a better future, an easier future,” he said.
Samuel Infante attended a rally held by Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who is running for Texas governor, in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 27, 2026. (Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
Yet Republicans have slowly won the support of Hispanic voters in Texas over the past few election cycles.
Now, some polls indicate the GOP has lost much of that support in 2026, although others dispute the results.
When Trump was elected president in 2024, he gained unprecedented support among Hispanic voters in South Texas, at roughly 55 percent. In 2020, he won about 40 percent of the Latino vote.
A Cook Political Report poll said Hispanics favored Democrats 2–1 statewide in 2026.
That poll, which ended in early September, showed Talarico leading Paxton among Hispanic voters 63 percent to 30 percent, including 73 percent of self-described independents.
Likewise, Abbott, who won 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2022, is favored by only 33 percent of Hispanics, according to the same poll.
Still, one expert told The Epoch Times that the polls don’t reflect what he’s seeing on the ground.
Abraham Enriquez, founder of Bienvenido US, a conservative Hispanic outreach organization, said he believes that conservative Hispanics will be the reason Texas stays red.
“This new wave of Republican voters, which happen to be majority Hispanic, we’re the ones actually keeping our party alive,” Enriquez told The Epoch Times.
He said he recently sensed a shift among Hispanics who were reluctant to support Paxton but have come around.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks onstage on the second day of the 2026 Republican National Convention in Dallas on Sept. 10, 2026. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Some Hispanic voters see Paxton as supporting families, Enriquez said. He said Talarico’s positions on cultural issues—especially transgender issues and what Enriquez called the “breaking down of the nuclear family”—could alienate faith-based Hispanic voters.
Enriquez described his father as a typical Hispanic who works long hours and doesn’t have time to follow politics in the media. He said that to his father, Paxton appears more supportive of families and traditional values.
However, Enriquez said Democratic voter-registration efforts have paid off in the state. Close polling should warn Republicans to improve their efforts between elections, he said.
In response, the Republican National Committee has launched a Hispanic voter outreach program in South Texas.
The program, called Proyecto Lone Star, identified about 700,000 persuadable Hispanic voters who could “help make or break” races for governor, Senate, attorney general, and down-ballot offices.
Hispanic organizations have been block walking, phone banking, and registering voters this election cycle, Enriquez said.
Trump supporters Pat Saenz, Marcus Canales, Roel Reyes, and Ross Barrera wave Trump flags as motorists honk while driving on U.S. 83 in Rio Grande City, Texas, on Nov. 9, 2024. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
Money, Money, Money
Burton said voters face high gas prices every time they fill up, putting the issue front and center for many.
He connects data centers to concerns over high energy costs. Farmers and ranchers are particularly concerned about diesel prices.
“They’re just thinking about what gas prices were most recently, and how they are now,” Burton said.
He said voters are tying those price hikes to Republicans and Trump, who promised to bring prices down. The Iran war is also unpopular, he said.
Burton said it’s a hard sell right now for Republicans to note high gas prices under Biden, who supported ending fossil fuels and revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Beyond the pump, Burton mentioned food costs, with staples such as milk, dairy, and beef remaining high.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, grocery prices aren’t climbing as dramatically as before. Data show an unadjusted 1.8 percent increase over the 12 months ending in September.
High gas prices are listed at a Shell gas station in Los Angeles on March 9, 2026. (Photo by Frederic J Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
Polling Pitfalls
Most October polls showed Talarico ahead, but a few right-leaning polls, such as InsiderAdvantage, broke the trend; a mid-October poll showed Paxton at 49 percent and Talarico at 48 percent.
Paxton supporters such as Block suggested that unfavorable polls might backfire and strengthen Republican turnout.
“I think that what they’re doing is actually sealing the election for the Republican Party,” Burton said.
England added that he doesn’t believe the polls.
“They’re usually from a university. I don’t trust universities because they’ve been infiltrated by the leftists,” he said.
Burton said polls have historically undercounted Republican support in Texas, pointing to past polling that indicated close races when Republicans ultimately won them by wider margins.
President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Republican Senate candidate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as he brings him onstage during a campaign rally at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 7, 2026. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
If polls are off again, Paxton could have an edge in the Senate race.
“This race is going to come down to the wire, and traditionally, polls have undercounted Republican votes, and I think that’s the best hope that Ken Paxton has for victory,” Burton said.
While most polls show Abbott leading his Democratic opponent by 2 to 3 percentage points, one University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll ending on Oct. 5—sampling 861 likely voters—showed Abbott trailing Hinojosa by 1 percentage point.
The same poll showed incumbent Patrick trailing Democratic challenger state Rep. Vikki Goodwin by 3 percentage points. Most show Patrick with a 4- to 7-point lead.
Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.
