A tied TX-9 poll leaves our forecast for Gutierrez where it was
A DCCC Targeting Team survey shows a one-point race, but our model still puts Gutierrez's expected margin near 38 points.
Written by the newsroom · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 · October 24, 2026 at 8:04 PM EDT
Correction: the House forecasts used in this article predate our redistricting correction. They used 2024 House results on earlier district lines. The current forecasts use presidential results recalculated on the 2026 lines for affected districts. Read the methodology.
Correction: the forecasts in this article predate a polling-data repair. Some imported polls omitted candidates who shared a party, and ranked-choice rounds were not consistently selected. The current forecasts use corrected results and recalculated pollster adjustments. See current forecasts.
A new poll of Texas's 9th District shows a close race. A DCCC Targeting Team survey of 490 likely voters, fielded October 20-22 and posted on x.com, has Republican Alex Mealer at 48 percent and Democrat Leticia Gutierrez at 47 percent. A one-point gap in a sample that size is well inside the poll's margin of error. It is not a lead for either candidate.
The poll did not change our forecast. Our model still gives Gutierrez a chance of winning that rounds to 100%, and it still projects an average margin of D+38.1, the same as in our run earlier today at 6:32 PM ET. The only movement was at the low end of our range. Our 5th-to-95th percentile band now runs from D+25.5 to D+50.7, compared with D+25.4 to D+50.7 before.
That leaves a wide distance between this survey and our model. The poll's result sits well outside the range of outcomes our model considers plausible. Our model treats it as one input among many, and on its own it was not enough to move the projected margin.
The national picture is also unchanged by this poll. Our model gives Democrats a 99 in 100 chance of winning a House majority, with an average of 245.9 Democratic seats against the 218 needed. That figure is somewhat firmer than it should be. Our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and by district. It does not yet link demographically similar districts in different places, because we lack the data for it. Our generic-ballot average stands at D+8.5 across 40 polls from the past 45 days.
The election is 10 days away.
Polls this dispatch was written from
- DCCC Targeting Team · Oct 22, 2026 · n=490 · TX-9
Every constant behind these numbers is on the methodology page.