Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lost his bid for a fourth term Tuesday to Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, and Attorney General Ken Paxton lost the U.S. Senate race to Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, giving Democrats the two biggest prizes in the country’s largest Republican state.
Abbott conceded. Hinojosa will be the first Democrat to win the Texas governorship in more than 30 years and the state’s first Latina governor. Talarico is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988, the New York Post reported. Paxton also conceded at his watch party in Dallas.
Trump blames Abbott
President Trump put the governor’s loss on Abbott himself. “If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 11:35 p.m. “He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty!”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it the most serious loss of the night. “Texas has been the most significant Republican state this century,” he wrote on X. “A Democrat sweep of statewide races — and possible capture of the Legislature — takes away one of the anchors of the modern GOP. A huge loss.”
The Senate race
Paxton won the Republican nomination in a May runoff by ousting Sen. John Cornyn, a 24-year incumbent. He carried baggage into the general election, including his 2023 impeachment by the Texas House and a divorce from his wife of 38 years, state Sen. Angela Paxton. Talarico attacked him on both.
The race drew more than half a billion dollars in spending, according to the Post, including nearly $200 million from Elon Musk, who urged his followers on X to back Paxton.
Paxton’s campaign argued Talarico was too radical for Texas. It pointed to his past statements that “God is nonbinary” and that there are “six genders,” and to his support for a wealth tax. Trump and other Republicans called him “Tofu Talarico” over his vegan diet. Talarico had beaten Rep. Jasmine Crockett in a bitter Democratic primary in March.
A wider loss for governors
Texas was one of several governorships Republicans lost. In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy lost to Democrat Amy Acton in the race to replace Gov. Mike DeWine. In Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms beat businessman Rick Jackson for the seat held by Gov. Brian Kemp.
DeSantis noted the result in a separate post. With those losses, he wrote, Florida will be the only one of the 10 most populous states with a Republican governor.
The bottom line
Texas has been the Republican Party’s strongest proof that low taxes, light regulation and a secure border build a winning state. Businesses and families moved there by the hundreds of thousands. Losing the governor’s office and a Senate seat there in one night is a warning the party cannot explain away.
Some of it was self-inflicted. Republicans nominated a Senate candidate with an impeachment and a public divorce on his record against an opponent who made that record the center of his campaign. The President’s charge that Abbott drifted from the formula that elected him deserves a hearing inside the party, and Abbott should answer it.
Hinojosa now inherits the state’s border mission and its budget. Republicans in the Legislature should hold her to the border security Texans have paid for, and the state party should spend the next two years recruiting candidates who can win on conservative ideas without dragging old scandals along with them.