Nearly half of Texans plan to vote for former Republican President Donald Trump in November, according to a new survey of likely voters, while 44.6% support the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
While Trump has increased his vote share slightly in the past two months – 49.5% now, compared to 48.9% in June – Harris has chipped away at his lead, shrinking the gap to just under 5 points. That's notably tighter than the nine-point lead Trump held over President Joe Biden in the earlier survey, part of a series conducted by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston and the Executive Master of Public Administration program in the Barbara Jordan – Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University.
"Harris has made considerable headway among voters both in Texas and nationally in the short time since she entered the race last month," said Renée Cross, researcher and senior executive director of the Hobby School. "That's particularly true among younger voters, with 55% of Gen Z voters saying they will support her, compared to just 39% who backed Biden, but she also has gained among women and independent voters."
Still, Cross noted, Texas remains a red state, with Trump maintaining a strong lead among men, white voters and older voters.
Trump holds a narrow lead over Harris, 47% to 46%, among Latino voters, a sharp contrast to 2020 when Texas Latinos backed Biden over Trump by a 17-point margin.
The survey also found the race for U.S. Senate between Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and Democrat Colin Allred remains tight, with Cruz leading 46.6% to 44.5%; 6.4% are undecided, and 2.5% support Libertarian Ted Brown.
This second-wave survey followed Biden's historic decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and Harris' nomination. A substantial number of respondents from the June survey were reinterviewed, along with the addition of new respondents to ensure a representative sample.
Mark P. Jones, political science fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and senior research fellow at the Hobby School, said Trump's continued dominance in the state obscures some changes revealed by the survey.
"What had been a stable race, with Trump leading Biden by a margin in the high single digits for months, has tightened," he said. "Support has declined for third-party candidates, especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped to 2% in this survey from 5% in June, with more than twice as many of Kennedy's former supporters switching their votes to Harris than to Trump".
Just 2.7% of likely Texas voters remain undecided in the presidential race.
Michael Adams, director of the Executive Master of Public Administration graduate program at TSU, said Harris' gains among Independent voters account for much of her increased support over Biden, with most of that coming from people who previously backed Kennedy or Stein.
"Independent voters in Texas are fairly evenly split between Trump and Harris, at 41% vs. 39%," Adams said. "In June, with Biden still in the race, we found that 42% of Independents favored Trump, while just 18% supported Biden. It appears that a substantial portion of the third-party vote in part reflected a desire for another candidate, and Harris has provided that."
Eight percent of Independent voters now back Kennedy, while 5% favor Stein or Oliver; that compares to June, when 14% of Independents supported Kennedy and 10% backed Stein or Oliver.
Among the survey's other findings:
- Harris is drawing women voters away from Trump. She holds a six-point lead among women, 50% to 44%. In June, Trump held a four-point lead over Biden among women, 46% to 42%. (Trump holds an 18-point lead over Harris among men, 56% to 38%.)
- The race appears stable: 96% of Harris voters and 92% of Trump voters say they are certain about their vote choice, with only 4% and 8% respectively saying they might change their minds before the November election.
- Black voters favor Allred over Cruz, 72% to 20%, while Latinos support Allred over Cruz by a smaller margin, 46% to 40%. White voters favor Cruz, 57% to 40%.
- Allred holds a seven-point lead over Cruz among women, 49% to 42%, while Cruz holds a 13-point lead among men, 52% to 39%.
- Harris' net favorability rating has improved considerably since June. Currently 48% of Texas likely voters say they have a favorable opinion of her, while 51% have an unfavorable opinion, for a net favorability rating of -3%. That's down from -14% in June.
- 49% of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 50% have an unfavorable opinion, for a net favorability rating of -1%.
The full report is available on the Hobby School website. The survey was conducted between Aug. 5-16 in English and Spanish. The margin of error is +/-2.65%.
Story by Jeannie Kever
