TEXAS – Vice President Kamala Harris has nearly cut former President Donald Trump’s lead in Texas in half, according to a new poll released Thursday.

Trump leads likely voters with 49.5%, while Harris leads with 44.6%. The poll, conducted by the University of Houston and Texas Southern University, is one of the first to examine the situation in Texas since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race. In June, the same pollsters found that Trump was nine points ahead of Biden in Texas.

It appears that two groups have contributed significantly to this turn toward Harris.

“One of them is (Robert F.) Kennedy voters. Kennedy’s vote fell from about 5 percent to 2 percent, and twice as many of his voters went to Harris as to Trump,” said Mark Jones, one of the report’s authors and a senior research fellow at the Hobby School of Public Affairs. “And then there are the undecided voters. They chose Harris, too.”

Trump is currently only two percentage points ahead of independent voters; in June he had a lead of 24 percentage points.

The poll also showed Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred remaining within striking distance of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Cruz holds a two-point lead over Allred, 46% to 44%, virtually unchanged from the group’s June poll.

“To be successful, Cruz ultimately needs to connect Colin Allred with the less popular Kamala Harris and many of her progressive policy positions that are further to the left than the average Texas voter,” Jones said.