James Talarico is now trading at 59% on Kalshi after more than $14.3 million in volume, a sharp shift from early September, when the Texas Senate race was essentially tied. New polling also gives the Democrat a narrow edge over Ken Paxton, an alarming development for Senate Republicans in a state they did not expect to be defending.
The Texas Senate race has become a real toss-up, so much so that prediction markets are beginning to price it as a Democratic win.
Kalshi has now taken more than $14.3 million in trading volume on the Texas Senate race, up from just over $10 million at the start of September. And the market has moved with the money: Democrat State Rep. James Talarico is now priced at 59% to defeat Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Polymarket prices Talarico at 62% to win, with $1.4 million on the market.
That is a meaningful shift from the beginning of the month, when the race was essentially a coin flip, and Paxton held a narrow 52% edge on Kalshi. Talarico is no longer merely competitive. He is becoming the clear favorite, if still far from overwhelming.
The polling is telling the same story.
A new NBC 5 Dallas/Telemundo Station Group survey found Talarico ahead of Paxton, 46% to 43%, with 8% of registered voters undecided. The September 8-10 poll of 625 voters has a 4-point margin of error, which makes the race statistically close, but not inconsistent with a market now seeing a Democrat with the edge.
From long shot to market favorite
A Talarico lead in Texas would have sounded improbable at the start of the 2026 midterm cycle.
Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Republicans hold every statewide office. The seat was initially expected to be a straightforward GOP hold, with sitting Republican Senator John Cornyn in place.
But Paxton’s primary win against Cornyn changed the race.
The Texas attorney general enters the general election with a uniquely polarizing political record, including an impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas House on corruption allegations, followed by an acquittal in the state Senate. His portfolio also includes a long-running securities-fraud case and years of intra-party conflict with the Texas establishment.
Talarico, meanwhile, has built a campaign around the argument that Texas voters are tired of the state’s political dysfunction and willing to consider a younger Democrat focused on affordability, public schools and health care.
The result is a race that Cook Political Report now rates as a toss-up, a designation almost no one would have expected Texas to earn at the outset of the cycle.
Republicans spending where it matters
The money shows that national Republicans understand the danger.
President Donald Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., recently added another $5 million to the Texas contest for TV and digital ads aimed at Talarico. Paxton’s campaign has also received nearly $54 million from a Texas affiliate of the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund.
That is not the spending pattern of a party treating Texas as safely red.
Republicans have a Senate majority to protect, and Texas is not just another seat. If Paxton loses a state that Republicans have held at the federal level for decades, Democrats gain a path to Senate control that looked nearly impossible only months ago.
Texas was supposed to be part of the GOP’s foundation. Instead, it is becoming another defensive line.
The market still has uncertainty
A 59% Kalshi price is not a landslide forecast.
It implies Talarico has a three-in-five chance right now, not that the race is decided. Nearly one in 10 respondents remains undecided in the newest poll, and Paxton has the benefits of Republican Party infrastructure, Trump-aligned spending and a state that has historically favored the GOP in federal elections.
The market can also move quickly. A single credible survey, major advertising push, debate performance or late-breaking controversy could narrow the spread again.
But $14.3 million in prediction markets volume gives the current price more significance than an early, thinly traded political market. Traders have watched the race move from Paxton’s narrow advantage, to a dead heat, to a Talarico lead as polling and national attention have intensified.
That does not guarantee the market is right. It does make the shift hard to dismiss.
A Senate control problem
For Senate Republicans, the Texas race is becoming an avoidable crisis. The party entered the cycle with a clear structural advantage and a map that seemed likely to force Democrats into defense in states such as Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire. Those races remain central to the fight for Senate control. But Senate odds are trending in the Democrats’ favor in those states, at least in the markets.
But a serious Texas threat changes the math.
A Paxton defeat would turn a presumed Republican hold into one of Democrats’ most consequential potential pickups. It would also mean Senate Republicans need to offset that loss elsewhere while protecting their majority.
