Within the Margin

I would not normally devote a post to one poll…let alone one for a state legislative district. I’m about as interested in state legislatures as one can be – spent nearly a decade working in one – but I cannot be in the business of writing up every poll and I generally think polling is unreliable at that level of government (ask me how I know!) But the Texas Senate is different: with a population of about 940,000 souls per district, Texas Senate seats are considerably larger than the average Congressional district. They’re also larger than six states and the District of Columbia. There’s a case to be made that Texas state senators are better-known quantities than their counterparts in many other states.

And the poll in question covers interesting territory for our purposes: the 9th Senate District covers northwestern Tarrant County, including a sizable portion of Fort Worth. The city of Fort Worth – the nation’s 10th-largest – voted narrowly for Harris in 2024 after giving Biden a bigger win four years earlier, but SD-9 includes some of the city’s reddest neighborhoods and then stretches north and northwest to include more of Tarrant County’s most Republican precincts. Trump carried the district as a whole by a 17-point margin in 2024, and downballot most of this territory has been staunchly Republican for decades. But Trump has often been downright toxic in suburban areas during his two terms in office, and that effect was on display this past January in a special election to fill a vacancy in this district. Taylor Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and mechanic, defeated political activist and Patriot Mobile communications officer Leigh Wambsganss. It marked the first Democratic win in this district in decades, but it was also something of a political earthquake because of how decisive it was: Rehmet won by more than 14 points in a seat that, as mentioned above, Trump won by 17 just a little over a year earlier. It’s a nearly unthinkable swing, even allowing for the quirks of special elections. And given how Wambsganss was so strongly associated with the MAGA movement and school board candidates who fought against DEI politics, it was pretty easy to see the result as a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. Since that January election, of course, Trump’s own popularity has continued to fall. He appears to be a massive drag on his party.

That brings us to the poll. This was an internal poll, conducted by a Republican pollster. It showed Wambsganss down 14 points (53% to 39%) – matching, in other words, the margin from January’s special election. It also showed James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race by 11 points within SD-9 and gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa up by 9 points over longtime incumbent Greg Abbott. Republican trailed for lieutenant governor and Tarrant County judge (executive) as well. Up and down the ballot, the GOP would appear to be in trouble in a once-red portion of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, with statewide consequences. And the poll gives us yet another reason to believe that the special election results for Democrats this year – which have shown remarkable overperformances relative to the baseline – might not simply be the product of turnout differentials in low-profile races but a harbinger of things to come in November.

Last year’s general election results confirmed the strong Democratic polling in the months leading up to it…and even exceeded it. There’s a tendency on some circles to dismiss polling because of Trump’s history of beating his polling numbers, but there’s actually very little reason to dismiss it when he’s not on the ballot. Midterm polling did quite well in 2018 and 2022 and again in last year’s elections – underestimating Democratic success, in fact. A key reason I’m generally believing of the strong Democratic environment portrayed by polling is that we have those 2025 results in our pockets, and there are logical reasons – Iran, gas/diesel prices, ICE violence – to assume the veracity of polling that shows Republican standing deteriorating further since then. We’ve got this Texas poll now that shows Democrats in a dominating position in red territory where we already have proof of concept that it can actually happen. It’s another indicator that whether you’re looking at data or vibes, the questions right now are more about just how good Election Night will be for Dems this year, rather than whether it will be a good night.