(The Center Square) – A new forecast and poll show that former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, are ahead of their opponents in their respective races in November.
Latinos also favor Trump in Texas, with border security a top issue, according to a new poll out of Houston.
A new Decision Desk HQ and The Hill model predicts that Trump has a 56% chance of winning the presidency.
Trump “has matched his best odds of winning the 2024 presidential race since” Decision Desk HQ and the Hill launched its forecast in May. Among its model’s eight predicted toss-ups, Trump is slightly favored to win in the wing states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Despite his widely criticized presidential debate performance two weeks ago and ongoing misstatements, including referring to Trump as his vice president at a news conference Thursday night, President Joe Biden maintains a slight edge over Trump in Michigan, Minnesota and Maine.
Biden won each of these eight states in 2020. Trump would need to win four of them to gain the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Biden remains defiant that he is not stepping down after a growing number of Democrats, elected officials and news editorial boards have called for him to do so, citing his declining cognitive abilities. Since the first presidential debate this year, when Biden lost his train of thought and couldn’t complete sentences, “Trends in our key battleground averages have all moved in Trump’s direction over the last two weeks,” the forecast says.
It also notes that Trump already has 235 electoral votes to Biden’s 226 in states that heavily favor either candidate.
In Texas, a new University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll has Trump leading Biden by 9 points, with 49% of Texas likely voters polled saying they plan on voting for Trump and 40% for Joe Biden.
The poll is evenly divided along party lines with each side saying they will vote for their party’s candidate.
More Texas likely voters hold a favorable view of Trump (50%) than of Biden (44%) and more hold an unfavorable view of Biden (55%) than of Trump (49%).
Notably, 45% of Texas Latino likely voters intend to vote for Trump, compared to 41% for Biden, according to the poll.
The top issue for Trump voters in Texas is border security (72%), followed by the economy (55%) and inflation (52%). The majority of Biden voters say “the future of U.S. democracy” is the most important issue (43%), followed by abortion (38%) and climate change (32%).
The findings are consistent with a recent The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, which found that 84% of Trump voters would vote for him in November even if he was convicted of a felony before the election. The poll was conducted before he was found guilty of 34 felony counts in the New York City hush money case. Multiple polls conducted after the verdict show that Trump continues to lead Biden, The Center Square has reported.
In Texas’ U.S. Senate election, incumbent Cruz is leading his Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, by 47.6% to 41.5%, according to the Decision Desk HQ and The Hill forecast.
Cruz is leading Allred by three points, according to Hobby’s latest poll, which states its findings are weighted with “an oversample of Black Texans,” who overwhelmingly vote Democrat. The poll’s forecast is significantly tighter than that of a University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll, which has Cruz leading by 11 points. A Remington Research Group poll also has Cruz leading by 10 points.
The findings were published as fundraising for the Texas Senate race broke records in the second quarter of 2024. Cruz reported $12.6 million raised compared to Allred’s $10.5 million, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
Allred raised slightly more than former U.S. Rep. Robert (Beto) O’Rourke’s record $10.4 million in the second quarter six years ago when he ran against Cruz and lost.
“The 2024 Texas Senate race is a test of the state’s shifting political landscape,” Decision Desk HQ and The Hill state. “Analysts expected the Republican incumbent Ted Cruz to be a slight favorite but the Democratic candidate Colin Allred to be close behind and within striking distance. Texas’s rapidly growing and increasingly diverse electorate presents challenges and opportunities for the candidates. The ability to mobilize key constituencies and appeal to a broad range of voters will be crucial factors in determining the outcome of this race.”
