Top 12 Takeaways from the Only Dedicated Poll of Asian Texan Voters in 2026
Overview
Asian Texans are one of the fastest-growing electorates in Texas with high-intent to vote. Asian Texans are the margin of victory in a razor-thin U.S. Senate race, but preliminary polling clearly shows that candidates still have to earn our votes.
The only dedicated constituency-specific polling of Asian Texan voters shows Talarico leading Paxton among Asian Texas voters by 15 points. The survey was conducted in June and published in July by Tom K. Wong, an associate professor of political science and founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego.
But despite his early lead, the data shows that Talarico has still not consolidated his support amongst Asian Texans. Nearly one in three Asian voters are estimated to be undecided or outside the two-party choice, nearly half say they know little or nothing about Talarico, and two-thirds say he needs to do more for Asians before earning their vote.
The data presents both an opportunity and a warning to progressives. Talarico has a better vision of Texas and the country that resonates with Asian Texans — affordability, immigration, health care, education, democracy, and a contrast with Paxton’s scandals and extremism — and he still has an opportunity to translate his vision into trust with this decisive constituency if his campaign takes action early.
This data makes clear what our communities need. Asian Americans For Texas Action Fund is calling on Talarico and the Texas Democratic Party to treat Asian Texans as a core part of their path to victory by beginning sustained outreach to our communities now—not just in the final weeks of the election. That means investing in trusted community partners, multilingual voter education, translated campaign materials, in-language organizing and culturally competent outreach that reflects the diversity of Asian Texans across the state.
Key takeaways
1. Asian Texans are ready to vote.
Asian Texans are paying close attention and are prepared to participate in the 2026 midterm elections. More than 70% of Texas Asian American registered voters surveyed say they are either certain or very likely to vote in the November 2026 U.S. Senate election. More than 90% say they are at least somewhat likely to vote in November.
2. Talarico needs to do more to win over Asian Texans.
In the ballot test, 42.7% of Asian Texas registered voters support James Talarico, compared with 27.6% for Ken Paxton. While that does give Talarico a roughly 15-point lead at the start; that’s only part of the story.
The most important number is the uncommitted share: 23.6% are undecided, and another 6.2% choose someone else. Nearly one in three Asian voters surveyed are still undecided or outside the two-party choice. That is not a footnote — that is a persuasion universe.
That means Talarico has an advantage, but not ownership. Asian voters are leaning his way, but many are still waiting to be persuaded, contacted, and respected as a priority electorate.
3. Asian voters are not a Democratic lock. They are politically diverse and cross-pressured.
The sample is almost evenly divided by party identification: 32.3% Democrat, 30.8% Republican, 30.1% Independent, and 6.7% something else.
This is one of the most important findings for campaign strategy. Asian Texans are not a monolith and should not be treated as a default Democratic constituency. AAPI outreach cannot be reduced to a single ethnic event, a Lunar New Year post, or a generic immigrant story.
Among independents, Talarico leads Paxton 42.6% to 16.1%, but 33.3% are undecided and 7.9% choose someone else. That means more than four in ten independent Asian voters are still uncommitted.
4. Asian independents are a major opportunity.
Talarico is already far ahead with Asian independents, but a massive share remains available.
Among Asian independent voters surveyed:
42.6% support Talarico
16.1% support Paxton
33.3% are undecided
7.9% support someone else
This is exactly the kind of electorate that can decide a close statewide race: politically flexible, not yet saturated by candidate messaging, and open to persuasion. If Talarico wants to win Texas, he should be obsessed with Asian independents. They are leaning his way, but many are still uncommitted. This is where culturally competent outreach could actually move votes.
5. Talarico’s name recognition is still soft with Asian Texans.
Only 52.1% of Asian voters surveyed say they know “a great deal” or “some” about Talarico. Nearly 48% say they know “just a little” or “nothing at all.”
That is a major gap, especially because Talarico’s strongest negative is not ideological. It is informational. Talarico’s biggest problem with Asian voters is not that they dislike him. It is that too many still do not know enough about him. When asked for the strongest reasons not to support him, the top answer is “don’t know enough about him” at 27.0%.
This is both a campaign problem and an opportunity. The problem is that many Asian voters still do not know him well. The opportunity is that his weakness is fixable through direct outreach, paid media, earned media, community events, ethnic media, language-access outreach, and trusted messengers.
6. Talarico is favorable among Asian Voters, but there’s still work to do.
Talarico’s favorability is clearly stronger than Paxton’s among Asian voters. He is at 45.3% favorable and 19.1% unfavorable, while 35.6% are not sure or have never heard of him.
Paxton, by contrast, is at 28.9% favorable and 42.7% unfavorable, with 28.4% not sure or unfamiliar.
This tells us Talarico has room to grow. His favorables are decent, his unfavorables are not high, and many voters have not formed a strong opinion yet. But campaigns do not win persuadable communities by assuming goodwill will convert itself into votes.
The good news is that Asian voters are open to Talarico. He just needs to earn their trust.
7. Asian voters believe Talarico needs to do more to earn their vote.
One of the clearest findings in the survey is that Asian voters want more from both campaigns. Large majorities say both Talarico and Paxton need to do more for Asian Texans before earning their vote.
A majority of Asian voters surveyed — 63.1% — agree that Talarico understands the concerns of Asian Americans in Texas. That is a strong foundation.
But 66.2% also agree that Talarico “needs to do more for Asians before earning my vote.”
Asian voters are not rejecting Talarico. They are giving him a clear invitation: Show up. Invest in outreach. Speak to our issues. Build relationships. Earn our votes. And prove that you will be a champion for our communities and the issues disproportionately impacting us.
8. Talarico’s campaign cannot rely on anti-Paxton sentiment alone.
Paxton is vulnerable with Asian voters. His top negatives are serious: 29.5% cite ethics scandals, 27.3% say he is too closely aligned with Trump, and 18.5% cite legal controversies as reasons not to support him.
But Talarico should not mistake Paxton’s weakness for his own strength. Paxton still gets 27.6% of Asian voters in the ballot test, and among Asian Republican voters, 15.3% support Talarico, while 63.4% support Paxton and 15.7% are undecided.
There is an anti-Paxton lane, but that alone will not be enough. Talarico needs a real AAPI strategy with an affirmative message to earn votes, not just a generic anti-Paxton message.
9. Asian Texans are focused on kitchen-table economic issues.
The top issue for Asian voters surveyed is inflation and cost of living at 31.9%, followed by jobs and the economy at 20.0%. Together, economic concerns account for more than half of respondents’ top Senate vote issue.
This is also where Talarico’s positive message performs best. His strongest reasons for support are:
Focused on lowering costs for families: 28.6%
Honest and ethical: 28.0%
Represents a new generation of leadership: 18.5%
Shares my values: 18.3%
Supports expanding access to health care: 18.1%
This suggests the campaign’s AAPI message should not be narrowly symbolic. The path to winning Asian voters is focusing on: cost of living, economic security, health care, education, and whether candidates understand the pressures facing immigrant and working families.
10. “He will look out for Asians in Texas” is not yet one of Talarico’s strongest assets.
Only 13.7% select “will look out for the interests of Asians in Texas” as one of the strongest reasons to support Talarico.
That is a warning sign. Voters may like him, agree with him, or prefer him to Paxton — but not enough are connecting him directly to AAPI community interests.
This is especially important because 66.2% say he needs to do more for Asians before earning their vote. The campaign has room to define Talarico as a candidate who will fight for Asian Texans, but that perception is not yet fully built.
Talarico may be winning Asian voters politically, but he has not yet made enough Asian voters feel like he is specifically fighting for them.
11. Immigration remains deeply personal for all Asian Texans.
A striking 76.3% of Asian voters surveyed are at least somewhat concerned about delays in the legal immigration system, including 40.9% who are extremely or very concerned.
This concern crosses party lines:
87.2% of Asian Democrats are at least somewhat concerned
71.9% of Asian independents are at least somewhat concerned
68.9% of Asian Republicans are at least somewhat concerned
This is a major opening for a progressive campaign because it allows Talarico to speak to immigration through a frame that is deeply relevant to Asian communities: families, backlogs, visas, citizenship, workers, students, small businesses, and fairness in the legal immigration process.
For Asian Texans, immigration is not an abstraction. Asians are disproportionately affected by delays in visa processing and legal immigration. These delays affect families, workers, students, and small businesses. Talarico should be talking about fixing the system in a way that speaks directly to Asian communities.
12. Border politics are nuanced for Asian voters.
Asian voters surveyed are not uniformly aligned with a simple progressive border message. 64.9% say border security is important but that Texas has spent too much money on state border operations that should be handled by the federal government. At the same time, 53.9% approve at least somewhat of Texas deploying state law enforcement and National Guard to the border.
This means Talarico needs a careful message: responsible border policy, federal accountability, opposition to wasteful political stunts, and a clear distinction between public safety and anti-immigrant scapegoating.
Methodology & Survey Note
This survey was conducted by Tom K. Wong, an associate professor of political science and founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at the University of California, San Diego. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The raw data can be found here.
This survey was conducted in June 2026 among 456 Texas Asian American registered voters. Panelists were recruited online using the Cint platform. Respondents were weighted using Iterative Proportional Fitting (“raking”) to ACS 5-year PUMS 2024 benchmarks on gender, age group, and education. The design effect is a modest 1.108 for an effective sample size of approximately 411. The margin of error is +/- 4.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for full-sample estimates. Subgroup margins of error are larger. Subgroup findings should be treated directionally because ethnic and demographic subgroups have small, unweighted sample sizes.
This survey is best interpreted as a constituency-specific survey of Texas Asian American registered voters. It should not be described as a poll of the full Texas electorate.