Texas Senate Forecast on Election Eve: Talarico Leads the Final Polling Average 49.2 to 45.9, and the Markets Put Him at About 75 Percent
The last full day of the Texas Senate race finds the same picture from three different instruments: a polling average near three points, forecast models calling it a Democratic pickup, and prediction markets pricing James Talarico at roughly three-in-four.
On the final full day before Election Day, Texas's Senate race — the seat Republican John Cornyn lost in his party's primary runoff — is being read the same way by polls, models and markets. The polling average carried by the race trackers read on Monday put Democrat James Talarico at 49.2 percent and Republican Ken Paxton at 45.9 percent, an average of six published polling averages through November 2.
The forecast models land nearby. On Point Politics' simulation, updated Monday, projects Talarico at 50.6 percent of the vote to Paxton's 46.9 percent — a model margin of 3.6 points — and gives Talarico a 76 percent chance of winning, reading 6,857,566 early ballots already cast in Texas against the party mix it expected. The Cook Political Report still rates the race a toss-up (last updated October 30), while Split Ticket's November 2 rating calls it Likely Democratic, and Election Tracker's final call is Talarico by about a point, with lean-Democratic confidence.
The money markets agree with the models more than with Cook. On Monday morning Kalshi priced Talarico at 75 percent (7:35 a.m. EST) and Polymarket at 76 percent (7:56 a.m. EST) — contract prices, not forecasts, and the desk carries them as such. Talarico has also raised the most in the race, $128,772,835 per the Federal Election Commission filings the trackers cite. None of it is a result: Texas polls are open Tuesday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988 decides it then.
