Democratic candidates lead Republican opponents in three Texas congressional districts President Donald Trump previously carried

Democratic candidates are leading their Republican opponents in three Texas congressional districts that President Donald Trump carried in 2024, according to polling from Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs.

In Texas’ 15th Congressional District, Tejano singer and Democratic nominee Bobby Pulido leads Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz 50 percent to 45 percent. Trump won the district by 18 points in 2024.

In the same district, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton 50 percent to 42 percent. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz carried the district by 9 points in 2024.

The poll also found Talarico ahead of Paxton in the 28th District, 51 percent to 41 percent, and the 34th District, 53 percent to 42 percent. Cruz won the 28th by less than a point and the 34th by 2 points in 2024.

Republican strategist Mike Madrid, who has spent years tracking Hispanic voting behavior, said the numbers reflect a shift that political leaders have been slow to recognize.

“People, I think, broadly are failing to understand that the Latino vote is the largest swing vote in America,” Madrid told Newsweek.

The 15th District’s 18-point swing

Texas’ 15th Congressional District stretches from Hidalgo County on the border to Guadalupe County near San Antonio and is roughly 81 percent Hispanic, according to Census Bureau data cited by The Texas Tribune. Trump carried it by 18 points in 2024, while De La Cruz won reelection by 14 points.

The Texas Southern University poll now shows both Pulido and Talarico ahead, a reversal Madrid said was significant. He called it the third survey in a week to show Pulido leading by 5 to 7 points.

“While people saw this shift to the right in 2024, most people were thinking it was part of this permanent realignment,” Madrid said. “A lot of people who understand the Latino vote were saying it’s not that at all, that it was reflecting the frustration and anger with the economy at the time, and that frustration and anger has gotten worse.”

Madrid traveled to South Texas in August 2026 to observe the race. He initially doubted Democrats were learning from their previous losses but said Talarico changed his view after an interview.

“I fully was prepared and have been saying I don’t think the Democrats are learning their lesson,” Madrid said.

He then praised Talarico’s approach: “He’s speaking to Latinos, but he’s not speaking to Latinos necessarily as an ethnic group. He’s speaking to them as a working class.”

A separate WelcomePAC survey of 802 likely voters conducted May 18-25 found Pulido leading De La Cruz 48 percent to 46 percent. The poll’s memo also found only 36 percent of respondents believed De La Cruz should be reelected.

De La Cruz has questioned Pulido’s qualifications. “This election isn’t about who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera. It’s about who you trust with your family’s future,” she said in a campaign video, according to Border Report.

The 28th and 34th Districts

The trend extends beyond the 15th District.

In the 28th District, Democrat Henry Cuellar has remained in Congress even as the district backed Trump by 7 points in 2024. Talarico now leads Paxton there 51 percent to 41 percent, while Cruz carried the district by less than a point.

In the 34th District, which is roughly 90 percent Hispanic and rated an even split by the Cook Political Report, Talarico leads Paxton 53 percent to 42 percent. Trump won the district by 4 points in 2024, while Cruz carried it by 2 points.

Both districts backed Trump at the top of the ticket while favoring Democrats farther down the ballot, making them closely watched indicators of whether Republicans’ gains in South Texas will hold.

Madrid said conversations with Hispanic voters repeatedly centered on the economy.

“A lot of them would say, look, I’m conservative, I support gun rights, I’m socially conservative,” he said. “What they would say, which I thought was really insightful, was when neither party is talking about economics, then I’m going to side with the party who’s with me on my cultural values.”

Madrid said cultural issues were not driving voters by themselves. Instead, they became more important when neither party addressed economic concerns.

“The Democratic Party has gotten unrelatable to a lot of these voters,” Madrid said. “But if they were to solve and speak to the economic concerns, they could very easily get them back. They are getting them back.”

The polling behind the anecdotes

National polling supports Madrid’s assessment that economic concerns are central to Hispanic voters.

A UnidosUS poll of 3,000 registered Latino voters conducted April 27-May 14 and released May 27 found that 60 percent named the cost of living as their top priority for Congress. The economy and wages followed at 40 percent, health care at 37 percent and housing at 27 percent. Immigration rounded out the top five.

A separate UnidosUS poll of 400 Hispanic voters in Texas, conducted October 8-22, 2025, found tariffs and trade policy ranked third among economic issues voters wanted addressed, behind prices and affordability and wages and jobs. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

A national poll of 1,200 Hispanic registered voters conducted April 17-23 by Public Opinion Strategies for the LIBRE Institute, a conservative-leaning Hispanic advocacy group, found that 70 percent considered housing costs unaffordable and 83 percent said their health care costs had increased over the previous year.

Immigration enforcement also remains significant, though Hispanic voters often view it through personal rather than economic concerns.

An Equis Research poll of 2,000 registered Hispanic voters conducted March 10-20 found that among Latinos who believed Trump’s immigration enforcement had gone too far, most cited the detention of family members or U.S. citizens and legal residents.

Meanwhile, 83 percent of respondents in the LIBRE Institute poll supported focusing deportation efforts on people convicted of serious crimes, suggesting broader discomfort with enforcement beyond that group.

What the numbers suggest about November

The Texas Southern University poll is not an isolated result.

The University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved three Texas races toward Democrats in August: the Senate race from Leans Republican to Toss-up, the governor’s race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican and the 15th Congressional District from Leans Republican to Toss-up.

Other polling shows a much tighter Senate race. A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll released found Talarico at 42 percent and Paxton at 39 percent, with 14 percent undecided and Libertarian candidate Ted Brown at 3 percent.

The survey conducted among 1,200 registered Texas voters, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 percentage points before weighting, putting Talarico’s lead close to the edge of statistical noise.

An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey of 1,000 likely voters found Paxton leading Talarico 47 percent to 46 percent, effectively a statistical tie.

“The race for U.S. Senate in Texas is sharply divided by age: voters under 50 favor Talarico by 15 points, 53 percent to 38 percent, while those over 50 break for Paxton by 11 points, 53 percent to 42 percent,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in the release.

Election analyst Nate Silver has urged caution about reading too much into any single poll. He pointed to Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign, when Texas polling did not overstate Democratic support and O’Rourke ultimately lost by a narrower margin than his final polling average predicted.

Silver’s FLIPR model gave Talarico a 59 to 61 percent chance of winning as of August 2026, placing the race between a toss-up and a Democratic lean. He attributed the advantage to a favorable national environment for Democrats and controversies involving Paxton and Talarico’s fundraising rather than any single poll.

Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. If Talarico’s advantage holds, the race could offer an early test of whether Democrats are rebuilding support among Hispanic voters in South Texas.