Sen. Ted Cruz has only a narrow advantage over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke in the Texas Senate race, according to a new poll.
O’Rourke, a representative from Texas, is managing an enormous fundraising haul in the red state.
The state’s electoral dynamics have favored Republicans in recent years.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz may not breeze through his re-election bid in red Texas later this year, according to a new poll.
The first-term senator holds a 3 percentage point edge over his Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday. Forty-seven percent of Texas voters surveyed said they would support Cruz, while 44 percent said they would back O’Rourke, who represents the western edge of Texas.
The survey suggests Cruz will have to work to retain the Senate seat, which he won with more than 56 percent of the vote in 2012. Texas is one of the red states in which Democrats have mounted strong bids to unseat Republicans despite tough odds. Any gains in Republican strongholds would help Democrats reduce potential losses around the country as the party faces a daunting re-election map.
The race’s dynamics still appear to favor Cruz. President Donald Trump won Texas by 9 percentage points in 2016, though Democrat Hillary Clinton outperformed President Barack Obama’s 2012 showing in the state. Both Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., and Cruz breezed in their most recent elections in 2014 and 2012, respectively.
But Democratic enthusiasm and O’Rourke’s fundraising prowess could put him in position to at least make the race competitive. In the first quarter, the O’Rourke campaign’s staggering $6.7 million fundraising haul more than doubled the $3.2 million Cruz’s campaign raised. Due to Cruz’s previous money hauls, the two candidates ended March with about the same amount of cash on hand.
