Author’s Note: Other 2026 forecasts can be found in the Central File.
I. The Race
Greg Abbott (Republican) seeks his fourth term as Texas governor, the office he was elected to in 2014. Prior to that, he served as Texas Attorney General for almost the entirety of Rick Perry’s tenure as governor.
Gina Hinojosa (Democrat) is a union lawyer and sitting member of the Texas House of Representatives. She was first elected to that chamber, and seeks to become the first Democrat to win the governorship since Ann Richards did so in 1990.
II. State Profile
The overwhelming theme of all 2026 analysis of Texas should be the same - if all of that red votes, then Texas will be red. The struggle with all of the work put into that endeavor so far ties directly to the fact that Texas has open primaries and does not register voters by party, whereas Florida closes primaries and does have party registration. We can watch it live as every vote comes in and know definitively in which direction the electorate is headed.
Texas’s presidential baseline is perhaps more imposing to Democrats’ long-term hopes than any before it, even those elections George W. Bush won by more than Trump’s +13.7% margin in 2024. The bedrock of that victory was a historic performance with Latino voters - 55% of them backed Trump:
While some of its urban counties, especially Dallas and Travis, have gone the way of their counterparts in the past 20 years (mega-blue), Harris (which contains Houston) and Bexar (San Antonio) have large working-class populations which have kept the county margins from getting out of control against Republicans. The rural areas of Texas are overwhelmingly Republican, and even more so now that rural South Texas has lurched in the same direction.
Democrats must have low Republican turnout, large swings in a small handful of counties, and overwhelming turnout in four blue bubbles (Harris, Bexar, Travis, Dallas Counties) to win a statewide election in Texas - something they haven’t done since 1994.
2026, thanks to its place on the calendar and in the electoral cycles, gives them their best shot in years to do just that, and they mostly have their eyes set on the Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton, which I will profile after the end of in-person early voting.
Presidential Margins
2016 Trump +9.0%
2020 Trump +5.6%
2024 Trump +13.7%
Key Statistics
40.2% Hispanic, 39.3% White, 11.6% Black, 5.1% Asian
III. Market Assessment
Polymarket bettors find Abbott the favorite, but by far lower odds than they would have in any of his three runs had these platforms been widely used in the past.
IV. History
In 1978, Republican Bill Clements rode a midterm wave to become the first Republican governor of Texas since Reconstruction. What followed behind him throughout Texas was a windfall very much like the one observers have seen materialize in Florida under Ron DeSantis. In 1980, Ronald Reagan flipped Texas’s electoral votes, thus beginning a streak of 12 consecutive Republican presidential wins remaining intact to this day.
Clements was unseated in 1982, but won the office back in 1987 and served another term. Democrat Ann Richards became the last from her party to serve as Texas governor when she won it in 1990 against human gaffe machine Clayton Williams, whose undisciplined commentary and antics cost him the race. Richards, in hindsight, is more conservative than most governors who call themselves Republican today; however, the partisan realignment caught up to her in 1994 and she was ousted by our future 43rd president, George W. Bush. As indicated above, 1994 was also the last year Democrats carried any statewide offices.
Thus began the stretch of GOP dominance in the governor’s mansion that remains intact today.
Bush won reelection in an absolute massacre in 1998 that is as red as Trump’s 2024 map:
He then won the presidency and handed the office off to Rick Perry, who was then serving as Lieutenant Governor (elected in 1998, first Republican in position since Reconstruction). Perry won the office in 2002 and was reelected in 2006 and 2010. Abbott, if reelected, will pass Perry as longest-tenured Texas governor provided he serves out the entirety of his fourth term.
Abbott swept into office in the 2014 midterm wave, and believe it or not, there was plenty of tough talk about turning Texas blue back then. The Democrats ran a state legislator named Wendy Davis, who earned the nickname “Abortion Barbie” for her looks and views on infanticide. Here is how it worked out for her:
With Trump in office, Texas faced a strong Democrat tailwind for the first time in many years. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke challenged Ted Cruz for his U.S. Senate seat, and gave him a hell of a run - even exceeding Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential vote count. Abbott faced a weak opponent, former Dallas sheriff Lupe Valdez, and beat her by a margin of +13.3%.
Abbott’s most recent reelection came against O’Rourke in 2022, who ran with faded star power and in the wrong cycle to attempt an upset:
The 10.9% margin of victory was Abbott’s lowest yet, but there was very little expectation that Texas was in play and no one was overly invested in making sure the pedal was slammed to the floorboard like they are today in pursuit of turnout. Trump cleared Abbott’s vote count by more than two million just two years later.
V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results
Abbott faced a primary in 2026, but wound up beating Pete Chambers by over 70 points. Despite the frustration of grassroots Republicans with some of his policies responsible for transforming DFW and Central Texas into unrecognizable messes, the requirement to defeat Democrats will ensure he carries practically every rank-and-file GOP vote.