Update at 3:53 p.m.: Revised to include pollster Joshua Blank’s comments about Sanders’ rise.

AUSTIN — Former vice president Joe Biden leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Texas Democratic presidential primary, but only narrowly, according to a new poll.

Sanders, though, has gained ground in Texas and fares the best among four leading Democrats against President Donald Trump in November, the poll found.

For Trump, the Texas Lyceum poll released Wednesday brought good news and bad news:

While he leads all four top Democrats in hypothetical general election matchups in the Lone Star State, Texans are closely divided over whether the U.S. Senate should remove him from office after the House impeached him for pressing Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.

The poll, conducted before the Senate’s trial of Trump began last week, found that 44% of Texas adults say senators should remove the Republican president from office, while 45% disagree.

Since a Lyceum poll in August, when it tested a cavalry charge of two dozen Democrats pursuing the party’s presidential nomination, Sanders has vaulted from fourth place in Texas to a close second.

“Bernie has had a moment here,” said Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, who is the poll’s research director.

“It’s certainly great timing – even if it is ‘the flavor of the moment’ – because we’re going into Iowa,” Blank said, referring to the first-in-the-nation votes that will be cast in Iowa Democratic caucuses on Monday night.

Among potential Democratic primary voters in the state on March 3, Biden leads with 28%, slightly ahead of Sanders, with 26%.

Trailing were Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (13%), former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (9%), former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (6%) and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (3%).

In the August poll, when native sons Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro were still in contention, Biden had 24% and Sanders, 13%.

Bloomberg factor

This month, Lyceum, a nonpartisan statewide leadership group, tried head to head tests of leading Democrats against Trump. He beat them all, though Bloomberg, who’s been advertising heavily, wasn’t included.

In the general election matchups that were tested, Trump leads Sanders, 50% to 47%; Biden, 51% to 46%; Warren, 52% to 44%; and Buttigieg, 51% to 43%, the poll found.

Though Bloomberg had promised to spend heavily on ads in Texas and other Super Tuesday states by the time pollsters wrote their questions, Blank said Lyceum officials felt uncomfortable “jumping him over other candidates to the front of the list” when he hadn’t actually campaigned for very long.

The margin for error for the head to head comparisons was plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. For the potential Democratic primary voters on who they want to be nominated, the margin of error was plus or minus 4.89 percentage points.

Senate: Hegar, followed by West

In the 12-person Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, former congressional candidate MJ Hegar of Round Rock leads with 11%, the poll found. Trailing are state Sen. Royce West of Dallas at 8%, labor activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Austin at 7%, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards at 6%. Four others tied for fifth with 5% -- Chris Bell, Michael Cooper, Victor Hugo Harris and Sema Hernandez.

“These guys aren’t breaking through,” Blank said, noting that 36% of respondents were what he would describe as undecided.

Among adult Texans surveyed, Trump’s job rating by Texans continues to be underwater – 52% disapprove, while 47% approve. Those under 30 were most likely to disapprove, the poll found. Among Texans over 65, though, 56% approved and 42% disapproved.

Abbott, Texas economy praised

Gov. Greg Abbott receives much higher marks, with 63% approving of his job performance compared with just 34% who disapprove. In August, the Republican governor won positive reviews from 67%, with only 33% unhappy with him.

On the economy, though, evaluations are rosier than last summer. The percentage of respondents who believe Texas’ economy is better off than the nation’s increased by 4 percentage points, to 49%, from 45%.

The Texas Lyceum poll of 1,200 Texas adults was conducted Jan. 10 to Jan. 19. Of the respondents, 1,000 were reached on landlines and cell phones, while an additional 200 adult citizens not registered to vote were surveyed online. On non-election questions, responses were weighted by race, ethnicity, age and sex to match demographics of the state’s estimated population last year. On election questions, the weighting attempted to make the sample represent all of the state’s registered voters.

For the full sample used on impeachment, job rating and economic questions, the margin of error was plus or minus 2.83 percentage points, Blank said. For the Democratic U.S. Senate primary question, it was plus or minus 4.89 percentage points, he said.