U.S. Senate: Cruz (R) 48%, Allred (D) 47%
A new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of Texas voters finds 53% of voters support former President Donald Trump for president in 2024, while 46% support Vice President Kamala Harris. One percent plan on voting for a third party and 1% are undecided.
“Harris’ support has remained at 46% for the last three surveys in Texas, while Trump’s support increased by three points since early September,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
“Trump’s increase in support is driven by shifts in key groups: Independent voters, who broke for Harris by six points in September, now break for Trump by two, 49% to 47%. Trump’s lead extended among men from 19 to 23 points this month, while women are consistent since last month in favoring Harris by six points.”
Voters were asked, regardless of which candidate they support, who they expect to be the next president. A majority of Texas voters (56%) expect Donald Trump to be president after the election, while 43% expect Harris to win.
In the U.S. Senate election, 48% support Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and 47% support Democrat Colin Allred. Five percent are undecided. Since the September Texas Emerson/The Hill poll, Cruz’s support decreased by a point, while Allred’s support increased by two percentage points.
“Independent voters break for Allred, 47% to 42%, while these same voters break for Trump 49% to 47%,” Kimball noted.
Forty-nine percent have a favorable view of Cruz, while 46% have a favorable view of Allred. Half of voters have an unfavorable view of Cruz, while 44% have an unfavorable opinion of Allred, and 10% are not familiar with the Democratic Senate candidate.
“Allred’s name recognition has improved since last month; 18% had never heard of him in early September, decreasing to 15% in late September, and to 10% this month,” Kimball noted.
Immigration is the top issue for Texas voters, at 32%, followed by the economy (26%), abortion access (11%), threats to democracy (8%), healthcare (5%) and education (5%).
Methodology
The Emerson College Polling Texas survey was conducted October 18-21, 2024. The sample of likely voters, n=815, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3.4 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration, and region based on 2024 likely voter modeling. Turnout modeling is based on voter registration and election data.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting cell phones via MMS-to-web text, landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) (both lists provided by Aristotle), and an online panel of voters provided by CINT. The survey was offered in English.
All questions asked in this survey with the exact wording, along with full results, demographics, and cross tabulations can be found under Full Results. This survey was sponsored by Nexstar Media.
