Ted Cruz has double-digit lead over Colin Allred in latest Texas Senate poll

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas voters said they’re leaning more toward sending Sen. Ted Cruz back to Washington rather than unseat him in November, according to new polling numbers released Wednesday.

The April poll conducted by the University of Texas and the Texas Politics Project showed the two-term Republican incumbent leading U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, his Democratic challenger, by double digits.

Pollsters asked a group of 1,200 registered voters between April 12-22 who they would support in the U.S. Senate race if the election was held today. A plurality of the respondents (46%) said they’d vote for Cruz, while 33% shared Allred would get their vote — a difference of 13 percentage points between the two candidates.

The poll also found 15% of these Texas voters had yet to make up their mind on the race, while 7% said they’d rather support someone else.

When it came to how voters feel about both men, Cruz came out ahead in his favorability rating compared to Allred, with the general election still more than six months away now. Cruz’s total favorability sat at 47% in this poll, while 40% of the respondents viewed him unfavorably. Only 3% said they did not know enough or had no opinion about the Republican senator.

The poll found Allred’s favorability at 36%, and 21% viewed him unfavorably. However, 21% of the respondents also said they don’t know enough yet to judge how they feel about him either way — the highest for any political figure included in the poll.

Pollsters estimated the margin of error to be about 2.83%.

Presidential preferences

In the presidential race, pollsters with UT and the Texas Politics Project posed two different scenarios to the voters who responded.

In a head-to-head matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Republican came out ahead by eight percentage points — 48% for Trump to 40% for Biden. Six percent said they’d vote for someone else, while another six percent said they haven’t thought about it enough to share an opinion on the race.

If the ballot contained five candidates, though, the poll showed Trump leading Biden by nine percentage points (45% to 36%) followed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. with 8% and Cornel West and Jill Stein with 2% each.

Problems facing Texas

Additionally, pollsters asked this group of voters what they’d say is the most important problem facing Texas right now.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 20% listed immigration as the top issue followed closely by border security (19%). Ten percent said political corruption and leadership are the biggest problem in the state, with 9% saying it’s inflation and rising prices.

Abortion and gun control/gun violence each captured 5%, according to the poll.