Greg Abbott’s Chances of Losing Amid Texas Warning Signs for Republicans - Newsweek

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, is facing an increasingly competitive challenge from Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa, according to two new polls of the gubernatorial race released Thursday.

Long viewed as a Republican stronghold, Texas appears to be emerging as a more competitive state in this year’s midterms, as Democrats believe President Donald Trump’s declining approval rating could allow them to expand the battleground in November.

The new polls suggest Hinojosa is gaining ground on Abbott, who has been viewed as the favorite to win a fourth term.

A survey from ReconMR and Siena University gave Hinojosa her first polling lead against Abbott of the election cycle, while an Emerson College poll also pointed to a narrowing race, delivering a new warning sign for Republicans about their chances in the Lone Star State.

Still, flipping Texas is a heavy lift for Democrats. It backed Trump by 14 points in 2024 and hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since the 1990s. Democrats have hoped to make inroads in the state in the past, such as when former Representative Beto O’Rourke nearly unseated GOP Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, but have fallen short despite a leftward drift in cities like Austin, Dallas and Houston.

Hinojosa celebrated the polling in a statement on Thursday.

“My message of securing the American Dream by saving Texas schools and putting money in Texans’ pockets is resonating with voters. In November, we’re going to end Greg Abbott’s 30-year political career,” she wrote.

Newsweek reached out to Abbott’s campaign for comment via email.

The ReconMR poll showed Hinojosa up 4 points over Abbott, 49 percent to 45 percent. It is notable because it is the first survey to show Hinojosa with a lead, as other polls have favored the incumbent governor.

Her lead was bolstered by a strong showing among independent voters, who backed her 65 percent to 27 percent in the new poll. It marks a shift from the pollster’s earlier surveys. In July, Abbott led Hinojosa by a single point, 46 percent to 45 percent. In June, the pollster found him up 6 points, 49 percent to 43 percent.

In the poll, 45 percent of respondents viewed Abbott favorably, while 53 percent viewed him unfavorably. Meanwhile, 48 percent of respondents said they viewed Hinojosa favorably, and 27 percent viewed her unfavorably.

The survey polled 614 likely voters from September 8 to 11, 2026, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

Meanwhile, Emerson also found a narrow race between the two. Abbott held a 3-point lead, 49 percent to 46 percent. That’s a similar lead to August, when he led Hinojosa 48 percent to 45 percent.

The newest poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters from September 12 to 14, 2026. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Joshua Blank, who runs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin, told Newsweek that polling “has continued to indicate a competitive race for governor, with the traditional Republican advantage evident in polling shrinking as Summer shifts to Fall.”

The "big question" over the coming weeks is whether Republicans can engage their voters “who have so far expressed less enthusiasm than in previous elections,” and whether Democrats can “convert a promising candidate and environment into an electoral victory.”

The economy and cost of living are going to be key issues for Texans in 2026, he said, noting those issues helped Republicans two years earlier amid the feeling that former President Joe Biden failed to address inflation.

“With the economy and cost of living still front of mind for voters, but now, Republicans in charge of all levels of government and a president who may be exacerbating the issue through tariffs and war in the Middle East, the environment has flipped; with Democrats advantaged by the broadly negative perceptions of the economy and Trump's performance,” he said.

A SoCal Strategies survey of 649 likely voters from September 12 to 13, 2026 showed him up 8 points, 52 percent to 44 percent.

Meanwhile, a Telemundo poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., showed Abbott up 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent. It surveyed 625 likely voters from September 8 to 10, 2026. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Abbott and Hinojosa were tied in the latest poll from YouGov and Univision, each receiving 47 percent support. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from August 27 to September 4, 2026, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

While polls show an increasingly competitive race, forecasters have continued to favor Abbott. The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both classify the race as being Likely Republican—meaning it’s engaged, but Abbott is still the favorite.

J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, wrote that the race shifted away from Safe Republican status on August 26. He wrote that Abbott’s favorability rating has “softened” and that polls show a single-digit race, though the incumbent still has a significant financial advantage.

“Abbott’s financial advantage could ultimately widen his margin, and we still expect him to win. But it has also been harder to justify a Safe Republican rating there,” he wrote.

Abbott is favored in prediction markets, having a 76 percent chance on both Kalshi and Polymarket as of Thursday afternoon.

However, Abbott's likelihood on Kalshi has narrowed in the past few months. One month earlier, he had an 87 percent chance of winning. At the start of the year on January 1, he had a 93 percent chance on Kalshi.

Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell contracts tied to current events, aggregating real‑money wagers into probability estimates. Prices fluctuate as traders react to polling, fundraising, candidate developments and broader political trends. They measure trader sentiment at any given moment but do not always accurately predict the future.

The growing backlash over data centers has become a key sticking point in the gubernatorial campaign. Democrats hope it can help Hinojosa make inroads with voters who might otherwise lean Republican.

Abbott last month said he had paused approvals for new proposed data centers while regulators conduct a comprehensive audit. On ABC News' This Week, he said the facilities had "dug their own grave" and had not done enough to engage in communities.

Eduardo Leal, Abbott's campaign press secretary, previously told Newsweek that Abbott believes data centers “must pay their own way, and Texans must come first.”

“Governor Abbott’s top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life. He has directed Texas regulators to ensure data centers do not take water needed by communities or power needed by the Texas grid, do not disrupt neighborhoods or rural communities, lower electricity costs for consumers, and pay for their own electricity infrastructure. Any project that fails to meet these standards will be denied connection to the Texas grid,” he said.

Hinojosa has urged Abbott to call an emergency legislative session to pass protections for Texans. During a CBS News interview, she described the pause as an attempt by Abbott "to protect his reelection chances," saying he had "invited hundreds of data centers into Texas with the largest tax break in the whole country."

"Texans have real concerns. These hyperscale data centers have hyperscale impacts on our communities when it comes to our grid, our water and just our way of life," she said. "Texans want protections and rightfully so."

Data centers are a big, but not the dominant, issue in Texas, Blank said.

“The issue has generated a lot of attention here both because the Texas regulatory environment invited the construction of a lot of data centers, but also, because the issue splits the Republican electorate between those who are and aren't supportive of more data center construction,” he said.

Abbott has had to spend “much of the summer” addressing it to not let it “metastasize into something bigger than it already,” while Democrats have been “happy to throw fuel on the fire from the safety of an electorate who is more uniformly negative about the construction of data centers.”

Sid Miller, the state's outgoing agriculture commissioner, told The Washington Post that data centers could become an issue for the GOP.

"I've been leading the charge against these data centers for a year or more, and it's all falling on deaf ears. It's going to hurt us in the midterms. I think we could lose some statewide races," he told the newspaper.

Texas will be closely watched ahead of the midterms as a potential battleground. Issues like the economy, cost of living, data centers, and Trump’s popularity could influence whether Democrats can make a play to flip the state this November. It’s not clear whether the two will debate ahead of Election Day.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant, Sam Wilson, Gray R. Thomas