Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), has made stunning gains in the polls in recent weeks, with the race now officially "too close to call," Quinnipiac University reported Wednesday. Cruz has a slight lead of 47 percent to O'Rourke's 44 percent, with a margin of error of 3.6 points.
Importantly, Quinnipiac University's poll surveyed 1,029 registered Texans. Other recent polls, such as Gallup's, have similarly found Cruz in a spot of trouble, but "the group of people Gallup is polling is the entire adult population, rather than registered or likely voters," FiveThirtyEight explains. "And in Texas, there's a big partisan gap between the adult population and the electorate. Nationally, voters, as a group, typically lean a bit more Republican than the adult population.But Texas is a special case: The electorate tends to be way more GOP-leaning than adults overall are."
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