President Donald Trump is headed to Texas on Thursday, but as he makes a stop in the Lone Star State, Republicans are seeing a series of troubling indicators ahead of the midterms.
Trump will notably make a stop in Denton at the Peterbilt Motor Company before retreating to reliably red Oklahoma for his actual campaign rally.
It comes as a series of polls show the GOP struggling to keep its hold on Texas, a state Trump won less than two years ago by more than 13 points.
The indicators suggest Trump’s multiple power grabs, from pushing the state to redraw its House districts in a desperate attempt to help Republicans and helping oust Republican Sen. John Cornyn, could all backfire spectacularly.
While Trump will be visiting just outside Dallas, a new poll on Thursday showed a more than 27-point swing in one of the state’s battleground districts.
A new House Majority PAC poll out of Texas’ 15th congressional district shows Democratic candidate Bobby Pulido leading Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz by 13 points, 54 percent to 41 percent.
De La Cruz, who recently was among the few GOP lawmakers who spoke at Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas, won her seat in 2024 by more than 14 points.
But the poll showed Trump’s favorability at just 38 percent there. De La Cruz’s number was even worse at 32 percent.
Meanwhile, an internal poll from Democrat Leticia Gutierrez’s campaign for Texas’ 9th congressional district, just south of Houston, shows her trailing Republican Alex Mealer by just six points in a district Trump won in 2024 by 20 points.
Gutierrez was at 39 percent to Mealer’s 45 percent, with a whopping 16 percent undecided. The district, which is currently held by Democratic Rep. Al Green, was among the ones more heavily impacted by gerrymandering.
Republicans in the state had redrawn the district to be a safe red seat as part of their effort to pick up five seats last year at Trump’s urging, but it appears multiple seats are vulnerable.
Even if Democrats do not manage to secure that House seat there, the shifts in multiple parts of the state are good news for Democratic candidates running statewide.
The poll out of the 15th district showed Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico beating GOP candidate Ken Paxton there by nine points, 52 percent to 43 percent. It also had Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa beating Governor Greg Abbott by a point, 48 percent to 47 percent.
On Thursday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved the Texas governors race in Democrats’ favor from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.” It noted the race tightening despite Abbott outspending Hinojosa six to one on advertising.
The troubling landscape for Republicans has also forced the Washington, DC Republicans and Trump to throw more money at the races there.
The No Going Back PAC, backed by Trump’s MAGA Inc., is spending nearly $2 million to help De La Cruz in her race. It is also dropping more than $285,000 to help Mealer in her race.
MAGA Inc. is also spending $20 million in the race to help Paxton defeat Talarico.
Even as Trump tries to stop the GOP bleed in the once-reliable state, the candidate he helped make the Senate nominee delivered a bombshell verdict on Trump’s convention.
Paxton told a group of lobbyists and donors behind closed doors that “everybody’s numbers dropped” after the president’s Trump-a-palooza earlier this month in Dallas, according to audio obtained by The New York Times.
His campaign pushed back that the Times’ report was just “manipulated nonsense,” and insisted their latest poll had Paxton up by three points.
But the public polling tells a different story. While the race appears to be tight, a dozen polls released since the end of August all show Talarico with a slight edge.
Trump’s Senate pick is the least popular Texas GOP Senate nominee this century, CNN analysis found at negative 16 points.
