Texas Senate Race Shifts to ‘Lean D’ in Prediction Market Forecast - Newsweek
James Talarico has gained ground in the closely watched Texas Senate race, with several prediction markets and election forecasters increasingly characterizing the contest as competitive, despite the state's long-standing Republican lean.
Kalshi, a prediction market, currently gives the Democratic State Representative Talarico a 59 percent chance of winning the November election, compared with 41 percent for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Another prediction market, Polymarket, similarly puts Talarico at 60 percent and Paxton at 41 percent; prediction market shares can occasionally sum to over 100 percent due to market spreads.
Meanwhile, Fox News' latest Power Rankings forecast has shifted the Texas Senate contest from "Lean Republican" to "Toss-Up."
The Cook Political Report has also classified the race as a "Toss-Up," updated from its previous "Lean Republican."
Polling guru Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin model has also shifted Texas into the "Lean Democrat" category, giving Talarico a roughly 70 percent chance of winning the seat, compared with Paxton’s roughly 30 percent.
In a post on August 25, Silver wrote that while "Texas is still a very red state," the model "looks at Ken Paxton’s laundry list of scandals and Talarico’s prodigious fundraising and concludes there’s just enough of a "candidate quality" edge to slightly tilt things toward Democrats, especially when combined with the polling evidence."
Recent polling has also suggested that the race is competitive. RealClearPolling, which aggregates polling from multiple surveys, currently puts Talarico at 47.6 percent, compared with 45 percent for Paxton.
Newsweek contacted the Talarico and Paxton campaigns for comment by email outside of regular working hours and awaits responses.
The increasingly competitive contest has also seen the candidates trading barbs on the campaign trail and on social media.
Talarico recently called out a blunder by Paxton, who, in a now-deleted X post, misspelled the Houston-area community of Cypress as "Cyprus," the name of a Mediterranean island country.
Talarico wrote: "It’s Cypress, not "Cyprus." But for all the time you spend on luxury vacations in Europe, it's no surprise you don't know Texas."
If Talarico wins, he would become the first Democrat since 1988 to win a Senate election in the state. Republicans have also won every presidential election there since 1980.
Despite Texas’ historically red lean, the Democrat has mounted an increasingly competitive challenge to Paxton, who defeated longtime Republican Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary runoff in May.
Paxton has allied himself with President Donald Trump, who endorsed his Senate campaign.
Talarico has presented himself as a faith-driven, common-sense Democrat and has centered his campaign on affordability and economic issues.
Paxton, meanwhile, entered the general election with a complicated record that includes his 2023 impeachment and acquittal, a securities-fraud case that was resolved in 2024, allegations of bribery and corruption, and his acknowledgment of an extramarital affair. He has denied wrongdoing in the various cases.
