Two top election forecasters this week shifted their ratings of the Texas Senate race after state Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff.
The Cook Political Report on May 26 and Sabato’s Crystal Ball on May 27 both moved the seat from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican,” a one-step shift on the scales they use to rate the competitiveness of federal races. The new ratings still favor Republicans, but signal that the forecasters now view the race as closer than before.
Paxton defeated Cornyn 64 percent to 36 percent on May 26, receiving 885,949 votes to Cornyn’s 501,725, according to the Texas secretary of state. The runoff was required after no candidate reached 50 percent in Texas’s March 3 primary. Paxton will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, an Austin-area lawmaker and Presbyterian seminary student, in the November general election. …