Cruz Nets Seven Point Lead Over Colin Allred in New Texas Poll

Early voting begins Monday in Texas and a new poll says incumbent Senator and Republican stalwart Ted Cruz (R-TX) has a leg up in a contest that could determine which party controls the upper chamber of Congress. A survey by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas Austin shows Cruz leading Democratic challenger Colin Allred by seven points, 51 percent to 44 percent. Other recent polls tend to show a narrower, three or four point lead for the Republican podcaster and legislator. Texas Politics Project research director Joshua Blank told CBS News that the gap may be because the survey asked respondents to make a choice as if they were in the ballot box, not allowing for undecided responses. “When push comes to shove, you see the Republican candidates easing back up over 50 percent,“ he said. ”While there is some case to be made that Allred has some momentum at this point, I tend to be more of the belief that we’re returning to a normal state of affairs that people aren’t used to in Texas, which is a relatively close race but not necessarily one in which you can expect a Democrat every election to come within two points as Beto O’Rourke did.” He added that he expects the outcome of the race to end up somewhere in the average of polls—averages by FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics both have Cruz ahead by about 4 percent.