New Texans, Latino doubts about Trump cloud Paxton's Senate bid

Texas has gained more than 2.5 million new residents since 2020 — roughly the entire population of New Mexico — reshaping the electorate and injecting new uncertainty into this year's marquee Senate race.

Why it matters: Republican Ken Paxton is favored to defeat Democrat James Talarico in November, but the influx of new arrivals — along with fading Latino support for President Trump and booming exurban counties — has scrambled the political math in typically red Texas.

By the numbers: Texas added nearly 400,000 residents in 2025, the most of any state, bringing its population to 31.7 million, according to an Axios review of U.S. Census data analyzed by https://mendozafirm.com/research/the-melting-pot/" target="_blank">Mendoza Law Firm.

• Since 2020, Texas has seen about 2.6 million new residents, also more than any other state, with more than two-thirds of that growth coming from people moving from elsewhere in the U.S. or abroad.
• That five-year gain is larger than New Mexico's entire population.

Zoom in: The big unknown is which party the new arrivals favor.

Signals are mixed.

• Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, tells Axios that newcomers tend to be less tied to Texas' long-standing political patterns.
• That gives Democrats more persuadable voters than they had when the electorate was more stable and Republicans had a stronger hold on it.
• Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, tells Axios that new residents often fall into two broad camps: "economic migrants" and "political refugees."
• The first group moved for jobs, lower living costs or family and are more politically mixed.

  The political types often fled liberal states for lower taxes and more conservative politics.

• Data from the moving firm https://blog.hireahelper.com/2025-texas-migration-report/" target="_blank">HireAHelper provides a snapshot of where new Texans are coming from.

  Of 265,000 out-of-state moves to Texas between June 2024 and May 2025, 14% came from California, 9% from Florida and 4.5% from Colorado.

Between the lines: What makes 2026 structurally different from prior cycles is the sheer volume of demographic change.

• Five of the nation's top https://www.axios.com/2026/05/19/exurbs-urban-cities-growth-census" target="_blank">10 fastest-growing cities since 2020 are in Texas, including Georgetown (up 58.5%), Leander (53.8%), Kyle (53%) and Hutto (66.9%).

  These communities, filled with transplants, represent a new and genuinely unpredictable electorate.

• Republicans have controlled Texas with overwhelming rural margins, strong suburban support and recent gains with Latino voters.

  Each of those groups is now more volatile.

• Fast-growing exurbs are blurring Texas' old urban-suburban-rural divide, and rapidly growing communities don't share the political background of old Texas.

The migration churn matters even more because Latino voters — another key piece of Texas' changing electorate — are showing signs of moving away from Trump.

• In a mid-April https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/28/texas-us-senate-poll-talarico-cornyn-paxton-2026-midterms/#:~:text=Among%20Latino%20voters%2C%20Talarico%20leads%20Cornyn%20by%20a%2032%2Dpoint%20margin%20and%20Paxton%20by%20a%2027%2Dpoint%20margin." target="_blank">Texas Public Opinion Research poll of a hypothetical general election matchup, Talarico led Paxton by 27 points among Latino voters and 25 points among independents.
• https://www.axios.com/politics-policy/donald-trump" target="_blank">President Trump's disapproval has climbed to 67% among Latino voters in Texas, and Democrats hold a 54%-to-28% generic House ballot advantage among Latinos in the state, a recent https://www.axios.com/2026/05/27/latino-voters-trump-republicans-midterms" target="_blank">UnidosUS/BSP Research/Shaw & Co. poll found.
• Trump won 55% of Latino voters in Texas in 2024, according to Texas exit polls cited by the https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/trends-latino-attitudes-texas-foreshadowed-trump%E2%80%99s-gains-2024" target="_blank">Texas Politics Project.

Yes, but: Texas has fooled Democrats before.

• No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994, and Paxton has already won three statewide general elections.
• Republicans still have the state's stronger turnout machine, and Democrats have repeatedly underperformed in the urban areas where they need to run up margins, Rottinghaus said.

Flashback: Beto O'Rourke came within 3 points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 — another anti-Trump cycle.

• Democrats say demographic change and softer Latino support for Republicans have improved their odds.
• Paxton carries years of legal and ethical baggage, but Talarico also has vulnerabilities in a state that still leans conservative, including past comments on religion and his progressive profile Republicans will target.

The bottom line: Texas isn't suddenly blue.

• But it is bigger, newer and less predictable — and that's enough to make Paxton's Senate race uncomfortable for Republicans.