Vice President Kamala Harris has cut into former President Donald Trump's lead in Texas, a poll released Thursday showed.
The survey of 1,365 likely voters conducted Aug. 5-16 by the University of Houston and Texas Southern University showed Trump favored by 49.5%, with Harris supported by 44.6%. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 2.65 percentage points.
The margin of 4.9 percentage points is much tighter than Trump's 48.9%-40.3% lead over President Joe Biden in the group's last poll, which was taken in June before Biden withdrew from the race and Harris ascended to the top of the Democrat ticket.
Texas is generally considered a safe Republican state, not having gone for a Democrat presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Trump won the state by 5.58 points over Biden in 2020 and by 8.99 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was favored by 2% of likely voters, a drop of 2.7 percentage points from the June poll, with 44% of June Kennedy voters shifting to Harris and 21% going to Trump.
The Green Party's Jill Stein came in at 0.7% and Libertarian Chase Oliver at 0.5%. About 2.7% were undecided.
Men favored Trump by 56%-38%, and women favored Harris by 50%-44%. In the June poll, women favored Trump over Biden (46%-42%), a net gain of 8 percentage points for Harris, but Trump gained among men, who had him ahead of Biden 52%-39%.
Trump led among white voters (57%-38%) and Latino voters (47%-46%), and Harris led among Black voters 77%-17%.
"Harris has made considerable headway among voters both in Texas and nationally in the short time since she entered the race last month," Renée Cross, researcher and senior executive director at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, said in a news release.
Cross said Texas is still a red state and Trump maintained a "strong lead" among men and white and older voters.
However, in the U.S. Senate race, two-term incumbent Republican Sen. Tedd Cruz is in a close fight with Democrat Collin Allred. The poll showed Cruz with a lead of 46.6%-44.5% over Allred, with Libertarian Ted Brown at 2.5% and 6.4% undecided.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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