A new poll on the Texas Senate race shows incumbent Ted Cruz tied with his two most formidable Democratic challengers, raising alarm bells for the two-term Republican.
The survey, released Thursday by Emerson College, found Cruz polling at 42 percent among likely voters in a hypothetical matchup with U.S. Representative Colin Allred, who had 40 percent support. In a matchup with Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez, 41 percent said they would vote for Cruz and 40 percent said Gutierrez.
The numbers echo the difficult reelection effort Cruz faced in 2018 when he faced off against Democrat Beto O'Rourke in one of the closest Senate contests in Texas in decades. Ultimately, Republicans held on to the seat after Cruz narrowly defeated O'Rourke by 219,000 votes. The last Democrat to represent Texas in the Senate was Bob Kruger in 1993. Kruger was appointed to finish Lloyd Bentsen's fourth term after Bentsen became President Bill Clinton's treasury secretary.
This year, three Democrats are gunning for the party's nomination in Texas. Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez is also running. The Thursday poll found Allred to be the most popular candidate among Democratic primary voters, with 29 percent support, followed by Gutierrez at 7 percent and Gonzalez at 6 percent. However, 37 percent said they are undecided ahead of the March 5 primary.
Newsweek reached out to Cruz, Allred and Gutierrez via email for comment.
The hypothetical matchup between Allred and Cruz showed that the Democrat held a significant advantage among Hispanic voters, young voters and women—three critical voting blocs in the nation's second-largest state.
Latinos make up the biggest ethnic group in Texas, accounting for 40.2 percent of the population, according to 2021 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic whites represent 39.8 percent. The poll showed Allred leading Cruz among Hispanic voters by 24 percentage points. Cruz performed better among white voters, by 23 points.
Allred also led Cruz among voters under 30, by 16 points, and by 11 points among voters in their 30s. More than 9.6 million Texans are under 45, according to the Houston State of Health website.
Cruz, who has acknowledged that his reelection bid is "going to be a firefight," raised $5.5 million in the fourth quarter of the 2023 fiscal year—a $3.7 million increase from what he raised in the same fundraising quarter at the same point in the 2018 election cycle. Cruz was significantly outraised by O'Rourke in the last election. Allred topped Cruz by nearly $2 million during the second quarter of 2023, but the Republican senator came out on top in the third quarter by roughly $600,000 over Allred.
Senator Ted Cruz attends a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on October 31, 2023. A new poll shows the Republican is facing another difficult reelection effort no matter which Democratic candidate challenges him in the general election. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Although both are vying for the Democratic nomination, Allred and Gutierrez have run on different platforms that contrast the two candidates' positions.
Allred, a former NFL player and civil rights attorney first elected to Congress in 2018, has touted his bipartisanship record in the closely divided House. Gutierrez, who has served in the Texas Legislature since 2008, is among the most outspoken Democrats in the GOP-led state Senate. The state senator, whose district includes Uvalde, also rose to national prominence in the wake of 2022's Robb Elementary School Shooting, in which 21 died.
"Significant portions of several key constituent groups are undecided in the Democratic Senate Primary, including Hispanic Democratic voters, Gen Z and Millennial voters, and voters without a college degree," Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a press release.
"To avoid a runoff, Allred needs to make inroads with these voters, like he has with Democrats in their 60s and those with postgraduate degrees, 52% of whom respectively support him," Kimball said.
If neither candidate receives a majority of votes in the race, the two top candidates will head to a May 28 primary runoff election.
The Emerson College poll was conducted from January 13 to 15 and surveyed 1,315 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.