Kamala Harris is on track to secure the Democratic Party‘s best presidential election performance in Texas since 1992 according to preliminary data from the Cooperate Election Study, a major new survey fielded by YouGov.
In Texas the poll gave Donald Trump a four-point lead, with 51 percent of the vote from likely voters against 47 percent for Harris. If this transpires on November 5 it would be the closest fought contest in the state since 1992, when Republican George H.W. Bush won the state against Democrat Bill Clinton with 40.6 percent of the vote to 37.1 percent, though he lost the election overall.
The Democrats have improved their performance in the last two presidential elections in Texas. Barack Obama lost the state by 15.8 points in 2012, but this fell to nine percent with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and just 5.6 percent for Joe Biden in 2020. As a result some Democrats have suggested they could flip Texas, with former gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke describing it as “the sleeper battleground state” during a recent interview.
In 2008 Obama lost Texas by 11.8 percentage points, down from the 22.9 point defeat Democratic candidate John Kerry suffered in 2004. In 2000 Democrat Al Gore lost the seat by 21.3 points, as did Bill Clinton in 1996 by 4.9 points. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won Texas was in 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford by a 3.2 point margin.
The Cooperate Election Study releases a major survey on America’s voting intentions before every presidential election. This year, working with YouGov, they polled 78,247 American adults, including 6,473 in Texas and 48,732 likely voters, between October 1 and 25.
In Texas the poll found Trump led by 21 points with voters aged 60 and over and by nine point with voters aged 40-59. However Harris enjoyed a 19 point lead among voters aged between 18 and 39.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks on The Ellipse just south of the White House in Washington, D.C, on October 29, 2024. Harris is on track to record the Democrats’ best Texan result in a presidential election since 1992 according to a new survey.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY
On the national level the Cooperative Election Study found Harris was ahead with 51 percent of the vote against 47 percent for Trump. The poll gave Harris the lead in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, though Trump was ahead in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
Newsweek contacted the 2024 Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presidential election campaigns for comment on Wednesday outside of regular office hours by email.
Other recent polling in Texas has given Trump a lead of between four and 12 percentage points. This includes an Emerson College survey of 815 likely Texas voters conducted between October 18 and 21, which put Trump on 53 percent versus 46 percent for Harris. The Emerson College poll had a 3.2 point margin of error.
The most recent analysis of national polling by election website FiveThirtyEight, released on October 29, gave Harris a 1.4 point lead with 48.1 percent of the vote against 46.7 percent for Trump. However the Electoral College system means it is possible to win the popular vote but lose overall, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 52 percent chance of overall victory versus 48 percent for Harris.
On Wednesday bookmakers Bet 365 and Paddy Power were offering odds of 67.7 percent and 69.2 percent respectively on a Trump victory.