Who is forecasted today to win the Texas 5th District House race?
Updated Monday, October 26, 2026 · 8 days to Election Day · VotePredictor
Lance Gooden is favored. The VotePredictor forecast gives Gooden a 99% chance of beating Chelsey Hockett, with a predicted margin of Gooden +15.2. That is a Safe R race: Gooden wins in nearly every simulation, and Hockett in the other 1%.
What the forecast is built on
On its 2026 lines the district's 2024 presidential lean is R+20.4 relative to the nation. The House model starts from that lean, adds the national environment as a uniform swing, and weighs incumbency (Lance Gooden holds the seat) and fundraising in the win probability.
- No public district poll, so the margin is the model's.
- The rating shops: the win probability also weighs Cook, Inside Elections and Sabato's current ratings; the margin does not.
- The published forecast: Gooden +15.2, a 99% chance for Gooden.
How the forecast has moved
Daily tracking of this race began on Oct 26; the trend fills in from here.
What everyone else says
Rating shops
| Forecaster | Rating | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Cook Political Report | Solid R | Oct 26, 2026 |
| Inside Elections | Solid R | Oct 15, 2026 |
All 2 rating shops favor Gooden.
Can you trust this forecast?
Every VotePredictor forecast is scored after the election against the same outcomes as everyone else's. Across 615 past races (Senate, governor, House and president), our final forecasts rank #2 of every forecaster that covered them all (Brier score 0.075, lower is better); FiveThirtyEight is first at 0.074. The full record is on the forecaster rankings and methodology pages.
This article is regenerated every day from the VotePredictor forecast, the poll database, the prediction markets and the rating shops' latest published ratings. Live numbers are on the race page.