New poll shows Biden with 1-point lead on Trump in Texas

A new poll of Texas voters shows Vice President Joe Biden ahead of President Trump by 1 percentage point, 45 percent to 44 percent.

The poll from Quinnipiac University is the latest to show a tightening race in Texas, a state that Trump carried handily four years ago and that Democrats have become increasingly eager to win. A similar poll of Texas voters released last month showed just as close of a race, albeit with Trump in the lead. 

But the latest Quinnipiac poll suggests that Trump has largely stalled out in Texas. While support for Biden ticked upward to 45 percent from 43 percent in last month’s poll, Trump’s support remained steady at 44 percent. Likewise, Trump’s approval rating stands at 45 percent in the state, the same as it was in June. 

Taken together, the presidential race in Texas has become a clear toss-up, said Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University. 

“With crises swirling through American society and a country deeply divided, there’s no other way to slice it. It’s a toss-up in Texas,” Malloy said.

Support for Trump and Biden remains high among voters from their respective parties. Among Republican voters, 89 percent said they will cast their ballot for Trump compared to 6 percent who prefer Biden. Meanwhile, 94 percent of Democrats said they plan to support Biden, while only 3 percent choose Trump. 

But Biden has a wide lead among independent voters, 51 percent of whom said they prefer the former vice president over Trump. Roughly one-third — 32 percent — support Trump over Biden, according to the survey.

A growing number of polls, both nationally and in battleground states, show Trump falling behind Biden in the race for the White House as he grapples with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, an uncertain economic outlook and nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality. 

Texas, in particular, has seen its coronavirus caseload worsen in recent weeks, and there is a growing dissatisfaction there with the president’s response to the outbreak. Trump garnered 45 percent approval for his handling of the pandemic in the latest Quinnipiac poll, down from 47 percent last month. Disapproval ticked up 1 point to 52 percent. 

In a bright spot for Republicans, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) leads Democrat M.J. Hegar by 9 points in Texas’s closely watched Senate race, garnering 47 percent to Hegar’s 38 percent. 

The poll suggests that Hegar still remains a relatively unknown quantity to most Texas voters. Fifty-six percent of respondents said that they don’t know enough about her to form an opinion, while 24 percent reported a favorable view and 19 percent reported an unfavorable opinion. 

About one third of respondents — 34 percent — say they don’t know enough about Cornyn, who has represented Texas in the Senate since 2002 and before that served as the state’s attorney general. Forty-one percent said they hold a favorable opinion of the GOP senator while 24 percent view him unfavorably. 

The Quinnipiac University poll’s findings are based on responses from 880 self-identified registered voters in Texas gathered from July 16-20. It has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.