Donald Trump maintains a lead in Texas but Kamala Harris narrows the gap amidst a surge in Democratic enthusiasm in new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll

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The latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds former president Donald Trump leading Vice-President Kamala Harris 49% to 44% in a head-to-head match-up in the presidential race in Texas. Three percent chose an unspecified “someone else,” and 4% were undecided. This result follows a June UT/Texas Politics Project Poll in which then-candidate Joe Biden trailed Trump by 7 points, 46% to 39%. The poll was conducted August 23-31 among 1200 registered voters, after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, and has a margin of error of +/- 2.83% for the full sample. (See the final pages of the poll summary document for detailed methodological information.)

In a multicandidate trial ballot including non-major party candidates, Trump and Harris received the same shares as in the head-to-head match up (49% and 44% respectively). Jill Stein was the choice of 2%, while Chase Oliver received less than one half of one percent, so was rounded down to zero; 6% were undecided.

The poll also registered an increase in Democrats’ enthusiasm about the 2024 election: 79% of Democrats were either “extremely” (52%) or very enthusiastic (27%) about voting in the 2024 election. These results represent an increase in both the degree and the intensity compared to the June UT/Texas Politics Project Poll, when 61% were enthusiastic (39% extremely enthusiastic, 22% very enthusiastic). Republican enthusiasm decreased slightly in both degree and intensity, from 77% either extremely (55%) or very enthusiastic (22%) in June to 49% extremely enthusiastic and 24% very enthusiastic in the latest survey.

In the race for the U.S. Senate, incumbent Republican Ted Cruz leads Democratic challenger Colin Allred 44% to 36%, with 2% preferring Libertarian Ted Brown, 4% choosing an unspecified “someone else,” and 14% undecided. Cruz led Allred 45% to 34% in the June UT/Texas Politics Project Poll.

A Deeper Look at the Presidential Race in Texas

The August poll also explored Texas voters’ views of the candidates, their traits, who they trust more to handle key issues, and other aspects of the ongoing campaign.

Favorability ratings

Kamala Harris’ favorability rating increased positively compared to June polling conducted prior to her replacing Biden as the presidential candidate. She is viewed favorably by 45% and unfavorably by 46%, a clear improvement after being viewed favorably by 35% and unfavorably by 51% in June UT/Texas Politics Project Polling. Among Democrats, she improved from 71% favorable and 14% unfavorable in June to 87% favorable and 5% unfavorable in August amidst clear signs of Democratic voters rallying to her candidacy. The share of Democrats who view her very favorably nearly doubled in the same period, from 34% in June to 62% in August.

Harris’ favorability rating among independents also improved significantly, from 18% favorable, 58% unfavorable in June to 37% favorable, 42% unfavorable in August. Her net-ratings remained in negative territory, but improved dramatically from -40 to -5. Republican views of Harris showed no statistically meaningful change (9% favorable, 84% unfavorable).

Donald Trump’s favorability ratings stayed in their normal range, despite the significant passage of time and events since the UT/TXP poll last recorded voters’ views of him in June. In that poll, 45% held a favorable view of the former president, while 49% held an unfavorable view. In August polling, Trump’s favorability ratings have increased to 49% while his unfavorable rating dropped 1-point to 48%.

Overall, Trump saw a bump in positive views among Republicans after the failed assassination attempt of the former president, with 88% holding a favorable view of him in August, including 62% holding a very favorable view – both peaks in the time series going back to November of 2015. Independents maintained negative views, on average, of the former president, with 34% holding a favorable view and 57% holding an unfavorable view, a slight improvement over June. Democrats continue to harbor a negative view of the former president, with 90% saying they have either an unfavorable (4%) or very unfavorable view (86%).

Candidate traits

Biden’s exit from the race has been accompanied by an increase in concern about Trump being too old to be president in 2025: 46% agreed that Trump “is too old to be president in 2025,” up from 33% in June. This share remains much smaller than the share who thought Biden was too old to be president, 69%, in the previous poll, and attitudes fall strongly along partisan lines. In both polls, more than three-quarters of Republicans did not think Trump would be too old to assume the presidency.

As the table below illustrates, Texas voters' views of the respective candidates’ traits are closely divided in most cases. 

Harris has a very slight edge over Trump, within the poll’s margin of error, in evaluations of temperament (49% v. 47%), honesty and trustworthiness (42% v. 39%), and empathy (“cares about people like you”) (46% v. 45%).

Trump has a similarly slight edge in being “knowledgeable” (55% v. 53%), and a much clearer advantage in being a “strong leader” (57% v. 43%).

The two are tied in the dimension of competence (52%).

Trust in candidates on major issues

Asked to evaluate who they trust on a selection of issues, Texas voters expressed more trust in Trump than in Harris on 6 out of the 10 issues included.

Texas voters express more trust in Trump on the issues that have regularly topped the “most important problems facing the state” items over the last two years of polling, including the current poll. Voters express more trust for Trump than Harris on the economy (50% v. 40%), inflation and prices (49% v. 40%), and immigration and border security (53% v. 36%, Harris’s lowest issue trust rating). Trump also led on crime and public safety (48% v. 42%), foreign policy (45% v. 41%), and infrastructure, (45% v. 41%). The latter result is likely to raise some eyebrows, given that infrastructure is widely viewed as one of the Biden presidency’s signature accomplishments, and an area in which Trump made frequent promises but was unable to find success through legislation.

Voters trust Harris more on climate change (47% v. 27%), gun violence (43% v. 41%), health care (47% v. 39%), and, by the widest margin, on abortion access (55% v. 27%, Trump’s lowest trust rating).

Asked in an open-ended question to name “the one or two issues you think the presidential candidates should be talking about during the campaign,” the most frequent responses included the economy, mentioned by 24% of those who responded, and inflation (16%), followed by immigration or border security (18%), and abortion or women’s rights (7%). Other issues mentioned by 5% or less of those who responded included health care, climate change, and democracy. (See the summary document for the poll for a more complete list of issues mentioned in the open-ended item.)

Affirmative support versus negative views of the opposing candidate

Harris supporters expressed more affirmative support for her when asked if their vote choice was based on supporting Harris or opposing Trump: 70% described their vote as wanting Harris to be elected, while 30% described it as not wanting Trump to be elected. In June, 53% described their vote as affirmatively for Biden, with 47% wanting to prevent Trump from being re-elected.

A large majority of Trump voters, 80%, continued to be affirmatively supportive of Trump, little changed from 74% in June.

Harris replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket

Among all voters, 72% think Biden “made the right decision by dropping out of the 2024 presidential race,” with only 17% saying it was the wrong decision; 11% had no opinion. Underlying the surge in Democratic enthusiasm, 89% of Democrats thought Biden’s exit was the right decision, and only 4% of his own partisans disagreed.

Partisanship enters in more strongly in comparisons of Harris and Biden: 49% think Harris is a stronger candidate than Biden, while 15% say she is a weaker candidate and 32% say “there is no real difference between the two.” Here too, Democrats overwhelmingly approve of the results of Biden’s decision to exit the race: 82% of Democrats say Harris is the stronger candidate, with only 3% saying she is weaker, and 12% seeing no difference. Most Republicans (49%) think there is no difference between Biden and Harris, with similar shares seeing Harris as stronger (21%) and weaker (26%) than Biden. Among independents, half (50%) see Harris as stronger, while 16% see her as weaker and 27% see no difference.

Nearly two-thirds of Texas voters, 64%, think Biden should complete his term in office, while a quarter (25%) think he should resign. Democrats overwhelmingly think he should complete his term (86%), while Republicans are closely divided – 45% say he should complete his term, while 41% say he should resign.

Key groups in the presidential race after the Harris replaced Biden

Kamala Harris’s unprecedented replacement of Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate has triggered attention to whether and how Harris might help Democrats in attracting key groups of voters whose support for Biden was called into question by early polling trends. There are several sources of caution necessary at this stage of the campaign when interpreting changes over time in group support using polling data to date. Most of the subgroups are sufficiently small subsets with large margins of error, and results for them are therefore subject to variance in multiple polls over time. All of the polling prior to fall should also take into account limited attention to the presidential race (and politics overall, for that matter), even allowing for the unusual nature of the presidential race this year and the attention it has generated. 

With those caveats in mind, Harris has improved among most of the key groups necessary for her campaign to maintain traditional Democratic bases of support, and to remain within single digits of the Republican candidate, the broad range of the Republican win margin in the last two presidential elections (5.58% in 2020, 8.98% in 2016).

In the domain of traditional Democratic support, Harris improved on Biden’s margins in June trial ballots among Black voters, women, and pro-choice voters. She led among Latino voters and improved on Biden’s June total, but the size of her lead among a group being hotly contested in Texas shrank to just 2 percentage points as Trump’s support also increased.

Trump’s hold on pro-life voters increased slightly, while the margin of his advantage among white voters held steady. Trump also gained among urban voters in the August poll.

Vice-presidential candidates

The unique nature of the 2024 presidential contest has generated somewhat increased attention to the vice-presidential nominees on each ticket. While new faces to most Texans, it hasn’t taken long for voters here to arrive at initial evaluations of the two VP candidates. Overall, 39% hold a favorable view of J.D. Vance, while 41% hold an unfavorable view. Republicans hold highly positive views of the first term Senator (70% favorable, 8% unfavorable), but Vance also finds himself in a negative position with respect to female voters. Overall, 47% of men hold a favorable view of Vance (36% unfavorable), while among women, 45% hold an unfavorable view compared to 36% holding a favorable view. While this no doubt reflects gender differences in partisanship, it’s also the case that Republican men hold a more favorable view of Vance than GOP women (75% vs. 64%).

Governor Tim Walz is viewed slightly more favorably (40%) than unfavorably (38%) by the Texas electorate. Three quarters of Democrats hold a favorable view of the Minnesota Governor, while he breaks even with Hispanic (36% favorable, 36% unfavorable) and suburban voters (40% favorable, 41% unfavorable).

Dynamics in the U.S. Senate Race In Texas

Asked who they would be supporting in the upcoming Senate race, Ted Cruz led his Democratic challenger Colin Allred 44% to 36%, but this 8-point gap represents a clear chipping away, as December UT/TXPP polling found Allred trailing by 16 points, which winnowed to 14 points in February, 13 points in April, 11 points in June, and now 8 points today.

A large part of this narrowing of the lead is likely due to Colin Allred consolidating the support of Democratic voters who may not be familiar with the Dallas area representative. One year ago, in August of 2023, 34% of Democrats held a favorable view of Allred with 11% holding an unfavorable view. In August of this year, 69% of Democrats hold a favorable view of Allred compared to 7% holding an unfavorable view.

A challenging group for Senator Cruz during his last reelection campaign, 30% of independents hold a favorable view of Allred compared to 22% holding an unfavorable view. Asked to assess Cruz, these same independent voters returned a negative review with only 23% saying they view the state’s junior Senator favorably and 55% holding an unfavorable view.

Overall, Cruz is viewed favorably and unfavorably by 45% of Texas voters, respectively, with Texas Republicans offering overwhelmingly positive views (79% favorable) and Democrats, overwhelmingly negative views (82% unfavorable). Overall, 45% of Texas voters approve of the job Cruz is doing, while 44% disapprove.

While Cruz maintains an advantage in the trial ballot, the incumbent is underwater with respect to Texans’ job approval ratings among key segments of the electorate, including Latinos (55% disapprove, 33% approve); suburban voters (48% disapprove, 42% approve); and women (49% disapprove, 37% approve).

Views of the economy

Texas voters' views of the economy continue to be generally negative, with some glint of positivity about the future. Only 27% think the U.S. economy is better off than one year ago, with 49% thinking it’s worse and 23% about the same. Asked about the Texas economy, 22% think it’s better off than a year ago, 36% think it's worse, and 37% think it’s about the same.

When asked about their personal economic situation, 19% are better off, 44% worse off, and 36% about the same.

Asked about their expectations of the national economy a year from now, Texas voters were more positive than were their views of the present: 39% thought the economy would be better off, 22% expected more of the same, and 28% thought it would be worse off.

(To see how the latest results fit into trends in Texans economic and track assessments, see our trends compilation page.)

Job approval of Texas political leaders

• Governor Greg Abbott: 49% approve, 42% disapprove
• Lt. Governor Dan Patrick: 36% approve, 36% disapprove
• Speaker of the House Dade Phelan: 21% approve, 
• Attorney General Ken Paxton: 33% approve, 38% disapprove
• Senator Ted Cruz: 45% approve, 44% disapprove
• Senator John Cornyn: 32% approve, 36% disapprove

Check back next week for more discussion of additional results on state policy and other items in the August poll. For notices about new content, future poll results, and other Texas Politics Project news, add your name to our mailing list using the form below.

[Correction: an earlier version of this post misreported the "someone else" and the "undecided" results for the presidential head-to-head trial ballots. The error has been corrected.]

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