Cruz stays ahead in Texas

ActiVote’s October 17, 2024 Texas U.S. Senate poll shows that the Republican incumbent Senator Ted Cruz leads his Democratic challenger U.S. Representative Colin Allred by 5.6%. The poll was among 400 likely voters, has an average expected error of 4.9%, and was in the field between October 1, 2024 and October 16, 2024 with a median field date of October 9. 

Please note that Texas does not register voters by party affiliation. The estimated party affiliation we retrieve for our users is imperfect, which leads to the impression that there are a larger percentage of dissenters per party than if party affiliation is based on asking participants what they currently identify as.

Allred leads among urban voters, the youngest voters (18-29), Democrats and Independents, Blacks, Latinos, those with the highest income, and those with some college. Cruz leads or ties all other categories.

Political Spectrum

The following table and graph show the support for Cruz and Allred among left, moderate left, center, moderate right, and right voters. These groups are defined by splitting the national electorate in 5 equal sized groups of 20% each. Please note that in the light red state of Texas the distribution of voters is not exactly equal to the national distribution.

Both dominate their core constituencies: Allred takes 98% of the left and moderate left voters, while Cruz takes 94% of the right and moderate right voters. Allred has a significant lead among centrists. The overall lead for Cruz is the result of the larger number of right leaning voters (52%) than left leaning voters (38%) in Texas.

Comparisons

In all our previous polls Cruz led: 4.8% on October 1st, 10.2% on August 29 and 7.8% in our July 19 poll. In November 2022, incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn beat his Democratic challenger Mary Jennings Hegar by 9.6%. In November 2018, Cruz beat his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke by 2.6%.

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