Biden lead evaporates in Texas: poll

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead over President Trump in Texas has evaporated, according to a new survey, leaving the race a toss-up in the state just two months before the election. 

Trump is now leading Biden among likely voters, 48 to 46 percent, according to the poll from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. 

Biden had been leading Trump among likely Texas voters by 5 points in early July in a similar poll.

Trump’s support is largely driven by likely white voters in Texas, according to The Dallas Morning News, while Biden is backed by Hispanic and Black voters in the state. Sixty percent of white voters back Trump, while 87 percent of Hispanic voters and 58 percent of Black voters support Biden. 

The race is closer among registered voters, with Biden at 44 percent and Trump at 43 percent. 

No Democratic presidential candidate has won Texas since former President Carter did so in 1976. But Democrats have been pushing it as a key battleground state in the upcoming election after close down-ballot races. 

The poll released Sunday also found that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) leads his Democratic challenger, MJ Hegar, by double digits, but the GOP incumbent’s lead has decreased since the early July poll. 

Cornyn is now backed by 39 percent of likely voters, compared with Hegar’s 28 percent, but an additional 28 percent said they are undecided, based on the poll. 

The poll was conducted Aug. 28 to Sept. 2. It surveyed 1,176 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2.87 percentage points for those respondents. The margin of error for the 901 likely voters within that group is 3.26 percentage points.