The Last Full Day: Texas's Campaigns Sprint to Tuesday, and the Sprint Ends Monday Evening in Allen
Two surveys disagree about the governor's race and agree about everything else: it is turnout now. Monday is the final full day of the most expensive Senate campaign in American history, and Ken Paxton's last stop of it is at 5:30 p.m. in Allen — in the Metroplex.
Texas's 2026 election has exactly one full day of campaigning left, and the two best surveys in the field cannot agree on who is winning the governor's race. The New York Times/Siena poll released Sunday puts Democrat Gina Hinojosa ahead of Republican Governor Greg Abbott 48% to 47% among likely voters, inside its margin of sampling error of 3.4 points. The Texas Southern University survey puts Abbott ahead 50% to 47%. In the Senate race the surveys point the same way with different numbers — Times/Siena has Democrat James Talarico at 50% to Republican Ken Paxton's 43%; Texas Southern has Talarico 49, Paxton 47. A voter reading both learns the only honest lesson available: both races are turnout contests, and everyone campaigning today knows it.
The closing arguments were delivered Sunday night in San Antonio, where Talarico and Hinojosa appeared together at The Espee. Talarico, on his 'Clear Eyes, Full Hearts' tour, cast himself as the underdog against money: 'We are literally going up against the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world,' he said, telling the crowd that outside groups 'have already spent more than $300 million to try to stop us.' Hinojosa went directly at the incumbent: 'Greg Abbott is telling lies about me because he can't run on his record.' Abbott's closing pitch, made across the same weekend, centers on fiscal policy, border enforcement and social issues, contrasting his record with Hinojosa's legislative votes. The claims are printed here as the campaigns made them; Tuesday's voters grade them.
Monday's map tells its own story. Paxton, who scrapped the planned Alamo finale of his 'Come and Take It' tour — the Alamo Trust said it had not authorized an event, and the grounds' rules generally prohibit political events — spends his last day in Conroe at 11 a.m. and then, at 5:30 p.m., in Allen. That is Collin County, in this station's coverage area, one of the counties Paxton himself has named as a turnout tell. The most expensive Senate race in American history — just under $340 million in advertising by the Associated Press's count — ends its persuasion phase not at the Alamo but at a restaurant in the Metroplex, asking North Texas for the votes that decide it. Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
