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Top Stories: A Closer Look At Texas Senate Race Polling; Behind Paul Quinn's Higher Ed Model

The top local stories this evening from KERA News:

Results from two polls released on Wednesday suggest a close Senate race in Texas between Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke and Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

A Quinnipiac University Poll puts O'Rourke just six points behind the Republican incumbent. Cruz leads O’Rourke 49 to 43 in that poll. The Quinnipiac survey from May 30 showed Ted Cruz leading 50 to 39.

And the 2018 Texas Lyceum poll puts O'Rourke just two points behind the Republican incumbent at 41 to 39, well within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.67 percentage points. But 19 percent of respondents in the poll were still undecided.

Joshua Blank, co-conductor of the Lyceum Poll and managing researcher of Texas Politics Project, talked with Laura Rice with public radio's Texas Standard about the O'Rourke and Cruz matchup

"I do expect these numbers to expand as we get closer to election day," he said. "If we look at those undecided voters in the Cruz-O'Rourke race, they overwhelmingly lean Republican, so we'd expect them to come home, as we say, as the fall campaign gets underway."

Other stories this evening:

  • Critics of immigration often say immigrants are taking American jobs. Economist Jack Goldstone argues, though, one day soon there won't be enough Americans to fill those jobs. And today on Think, he talked with Krys Boyd about how immigrant workers are our best hope for keeping social security and other entitlement programs afloat.

  • Paul Quinn College in southeast Oak Cliff announced last week it is expanding its Urban Work-College Model to Plano. Students will live in apartments in Plano and get work experience at local, corporate partners. This is the latest effort by President Michael Sorrell, who is credited with turning the college around. Earlier this year, Fortune magazine named him one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders. Sorrell talked with Lee Cullum, host of the program "CEO" on KERA-TV, about the future of higher education.

You can listen to North Texas stories weekdays at 8:22 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. on KERA 90.1 FM.