Texas

Governors race

45.20BPI
45.60Poll avg.
CandidatePredicted Vote %Win Prob.
Beto O'Rourke45.6%25%
Greg Abbott54.4%75%

About Texas

Texas is known to be a right-leaning state, with Republicans currently holding all majorities in state offices, the House, Senate, and Texas Supreme Court. Demographically, Texas is a high in-migration flow state, with approximately 40% of its population identifying as Hispanic and just as many as non-Hispanic whites.


Candidates

Beto O'Rourke (D)

Image of Beto O'Rourke Source: Flickr.com

Greg Abbott (R)

Image of Greg Abbott Source: Flickr.com

O'Rourke was a representative of Texas's 16th district from 2013 to 2019, and served on the El Paso City Council. He was mayor pro tempore during his first year in office, eventually ran for president in 2020 but suspended his campaign and supported Biden.

Abbott is an attorney, former jurist, and has been incumbent in office since 2015. He served as the 50th attorney general of Texas and a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, actively working against the Obama administration and publicly supporting Trump during his terms.

Primaries

Beto O'Rourke won the Democratic primary on March 1, collecting 91.3% of all votes and defeating four non-incumbent candidates and four withdrawn/disqualified candidates.

Incumbent candidate Greg Abbott defeated seven others for the Republican primary on March 1, with a total of 67.2% of all votes and Allen B. West coming in second with 12.1%.

Issues & controversies

In 2021, Abbot signed a critical race theory bill to limit education about race and America's history of slavery, and additionally calling school literature about sexuality "pornographic content. Further, he defended investigations into parents of transgender children on the basis that gender-affirming care is child abuse. In this race, he focuses on developing a stronger border security plan, working on natural disaster preparation, and emphasizing the importance of small businesses and capital investment growth. In the past, O’Rourke turned away immigrants at Texas's borders to control Covid-19. He was also a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow as a teenager, a hacktivist group. His campaign is based on his accusations of incumbent Republicans for doing nothing against gun violence. And although he became ill with bacterial infection in early August, he continues to support marijuana legalization, is fighting to pass the first comprehensive nondiscrimination law for the LGBTQ+ community, and wants to ensure suitable healthcare, education, criminal justice, and voting rights for those with disabilities.

Campaign ads

Chance of winning over time

We run our model twice a day. Explore how our prediction has changed over the course of the race.

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Recent polls

Polls consist of polls ranked C- and above gathered by FiveThirtyEight.

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