Another one-point Texas Senate poll; forecast eases to 69-31

A survey from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center, fielded September 15-19 among 1,800 likely voters, puts Democrat James Talarico at 47 percent and Republican Ken Paxton at 46 percent, with 3 percent for other candidates. A one-point gap on that sample is not a lead. The race in this poll is close.

Our model now gives Talarico a 69 in 100 chance of winning the Texas seat, down from 72 percent in the run earlier this morning. The mean margin is D+2.9, narrowed from D+3.4. The 5th-to-95th percentile range runs from R+6.7 to D+12.5, slightly wider on the Republican side than the R+6.1 to D+12.9 range in the previous run. That is a small adjustment rather than a change of direction: the forecast has sat in the low 70s for more than a week, and a poll showing the two candidates a point apart pulls gently against a model average that has Talarico modestly ahead.

The seat is open; Republican John Cornyn is the incumbent and is not on our ballot for this race.

Nationally, our average of 28 generic-ballot polls over the past 45 days stands at D+7.6. In the Senate, our model gives Democrats a 54 percent chance of winning control and Republicans 45 percent, with a mean of 50.6 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them. Texas is one of the seats that decides which side of that line the chamber lands on.

In the House, our model gives Democrats a 97 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for control, with a mean of 243.6 seats. One caveat is ours to own: our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and within each district, but we have no data to correlate demographically similar districts across state lines. Without that term, the 97 percent is marginally firmer than it should be.