Swing voters didn't decide Texas' elections. The change went deeper.

Houston Chronicle · Carla D. Brailey · 2026-11-04 14:58 UTC

Swing voters aren't attached to either party and make their minds up late. Texas' blue wave was powered by "switch voters," who decide based on their values.

For most of this year, the polls told Texans to expect a coin flip. The final surveys of the U.S. Senate race showed James Talarico ahead by about two points, and the governor’s race leaned toward Greg Abbott by three. By the time Ken Paxton conceded on election night, Talarico led by roughly 20 points with two-thirds of the vote counted, and Gina Hinojosa was on her way to a double-digit victory over a sitting governor who had won every race he ever entered.

Pollsters will spend the coming months auditing their methods, and they should. As a sociologist who studies how communities move together, I would offer them a starting place. Texas voters arrived at the polls with a category the models were built to overlook, and I call them switch voters.

Every campaign knows the swing voter. Swing voters hold loose attachments to either party, weigh the candidates late and move with prices, wars and headlines. Campaigns court them with policy, and pollsters record them in the column marked undecided.

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