Democratic challenger Joe Biden leads President Trump, 48%-45%, with 5% undecided, according to a new Dallas Morning News/Univ. of Texas-Tyler poll (PDF). Prior UT-Tyler polls have shown Trump leading by two in September, Biden by five in July and a tied race in March. Following the release of the poll, Fivethirtyeight re-calculated its polling average and found Biden leading by a tenth of a point, making Texas the closest race in the presidential contest nationwide.

Biden leads among independents, 51%-29%, with 12% undecided. Undecided respondents leaned toward Trump, 42%-20%, but the sample size (n=41) was extremely small. Just 2% of each candidate’s voters said they “could change my mind” about their presidential choice.

Trump leads among Anglo voters, 65%-30%, including 60%-34% among Anglos with 4-year college degrees. Biden leads among Black voters, 89%-5%, and Hispanic/Latino voters, 69%-21%.

Trump’s job approval rating is 48/47 (34/41 “strongly”). Independents rate his job performance at 31/57 (18/48 “strongly”). Asked about their trust in Trump “to keep your community healthy and safe during the coronavirus pandemic,” 45% agreed a great deal (32%) or a fair amount (13%). Not too much was the choice of 9% of respondents, and 44% had “no confidence.” Among independents, 17% trusted Trump a great deal and 57% had no confidence.

Ratings Changes: Over the weekend – actually prior to this poll’s release – we adjusted our projection in the presidential race, narrowing Trump’s margin to less than a point at 49.9%-49.1%. No other changes were made in the base assumptions of the model. The result is several seats on the fringes of each rating category shifted ever so slightly toward the Democrats.We have revised our Race Ratings for the state House accordingly:

  • HD17 (Cyrier-R) to Likely Republican from Safe Republican
  • HD106 (Patterson-R) to Lean Republican from Likely Republican
  • HD94 (Tinderholt-R) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD31 (Guillen-D) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up
  • HD34 (Herrero-D) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD108 (Meyer-R) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic, and
  • HD149 (Vo-D) to Safe Democratic from Likely Democratic.

These ever so slight shifts placed a 10th Republican-held seat into Democratic hands.

Five congressional districts also shifted slightly toward the Democrats:

  • CD28 (Cuellar-D) to Safe Democratic from Likely Democratic
  • CD7 (Fletcher-D) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • CD21 (Roy-R) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up
  • CD22 open (R) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up, and
  • CD24 open (R) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up.

Our Race Ratings page has been updated for the latest model run. We will run it again later this week after the state candidates’ 8-day-out reports become available online on Tuesday.

Early voting enters its unprecedented third week and continues through Friday. Through yesterday (Saturday), nearly 7.2M Texans have voted early, the largest number of early voters in state history.


Download the chart

Already, 42.4% of registered voters have cast ballots, which trails only 2016 (43.5%) for the highest percentage turnout in state history. The number of early votes cast so far is 80.5% of the total votes cast in 2016 including Election Day.

SEN (Lean Republican): U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R) leads Democratic challenger M.J. Hegar, 42%-34%, with 18% undecided, according to the UT-Tyler poll discussed above.

The El Paso Times, two weeks into the early voting period and after more than 150K El Paso Co. residents have already voted, endorsed Hegar. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram endorsed Cornyn. More than half a million Tarrant Co. residents have already voted.

CD15 (Safe Democratic): The El Paso Times endorsed U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso).

CD23 open (Lean Democratic): The El Paso Times endorsed Democratic nominee Gina Ortiz Jones.

Texas Presidential Polls

  • Biden 48, Trump 45 – DMN/UT-Tyler (October) – LV
  • Trump 47, Biden 47 – Quinnipiac Univ. (October) – LV
  • Trump 46, Biden 44 – Data for Progress (October) – LV
  • Trump 49, Biden 47 – Morning Consult (October) – LV
  • Trump 50, Biden 45 – Univ. of Texas/Texas Tribune (October) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 48 – Public Policy Polling (October) – V
  • Trump 51, Biden 44 – Crosswind (October) – LV
  • Trump 49, Biden 49 – EMC Research (October) – LV
  • Biden 47, Trump 45 – Data for Progress (October) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 48 – Civiqs (October) – LV
  • Trump 49, Biden 46 – UMass-Lowell (September) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 48 – Public Policy Polling (September) – LV
  • Trump 46, Biden 45 – Data for Progress (September) – LV
  • Trump 50, Biden 45 – Quinnipiac Univ. (September) – LV
  • Trump 46, Biden 43 – NYT/Siena Coll. (September) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 46 – CBS News/YouGov (September) – LV
  • Trump 46, Biden 46 – Morning Consult (September) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 47 – Public Policy Polling (September) – V
  • Trump 48, Biden 46 – DMN/UT-Tyler (September) – LV
  • Biden 48, Trump 45 – Data for Progress (September) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 47 – Morning Consult (August) – LV
  • Biden 48, Trump 44 – Tyson Group (August) – LV
  • Biden 48, Trump 47 – Public Policy Polling (August) – V
  • Biden 47, Trump 45 – Global Strategy Group (August) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 41 – YouGov/THPF (August) – RV
  • Trump 49, Biden 43 – Trafalgar Group (August) – LV
  • Trump 47, Biden 46 – Morning Consult (August) – LV
  • Biden 47, Trump 45 – Morning Consult (July) – LV
  • Trump 49, Biden 45 – SPRY Strategies (July) – LV
  • Biden 45, Trump 44 – Quinnipiac Univ. (July) – RV
  • Trump 46, Biden 45 – CBS News/YouGov (July) – RV
  • Trump 46, Biden 44 – Gravis/OANN (July) – LV
  • Biden 48, Trump 43 – DMN/UT-Tyler (July) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 44 – UT/Texas Politics Project (July) – RV
  • Biden 45, Trump 44 – Fox News (June) – RV
  • Trump 48, Biden 46 – Public Policy Polling (June) – V
  • Trump 48, Biden 48 – Public Policy Polling (June) – V
  • Trump 44, Biden 43 – Quinnipiac Univ. (June) – RV
  • Trump 47, Biden 41 – Emerson (May) – RV
  • Trump 50, Biden 43 – Morning Consult (May) – LV
  • Trump 43, Biden 43 – DMN/UT-Tyler (May) – RV
  • Biden 47, Trump 46 – Public Policy Polling (April) – V
  • Trump 49, Biden 44 – UT/Texas Tribune (April) – RV
  • Trump 45, Biden 44 – DMN/UT-Tyler (March) – RV
  • Trump 49, Biden 45 – Marist Coll. (February) – RV
  • Trump 46, Biden 43 – Univision/Univ. of Houston (February) – RV
  • Biden 48, Trump 47 – CNN/SSRS (February) – RV
  • Trump 47, Biden 43 – UT/Texas Tribune (February) – RV
  • Trump 44, Biden 42 – DMN/UT-Tyler (February) – RV
  • Trump 51, Biden 46 – Texas Lyceum (January) – LV
  • Trump 48, Biden 47 – CNN/SSRS (December 2019) – RV
  • Trump 45, Biden 39 – DMN/UT-Tyler (November 2019) – RV
  • Trump 46, Biden 39 – UT/Texas Tribune (November 2019) – RV

Links go to our coverage or commentary on the polls. If there is no link, then we either did not see the poll or otherwise did not have enough information to report on it. Legend: LV-Likely Voters, RV-Registered Voters, V-Voters

©2020 Texas Election Source LLC