A look at the gubernatorial race in Texas

TEXAS — At Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest campaign stops, he’s focused on improving the educational outcomes of public school students.

“I’ve been talking about something no governor has ever talked about before, and that is strategies that will put Texas on the pathway to ranking No. 1 in educating our children,” said Abbott.

Abbott has proposed laws to limit screen time in classrooms, dedicate 70% of school districts’ budgets to classroom instruction and ordered an audit of districts to target financial waste. His opponent, Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, has criticized Abbott’s public school initiatives as a deflection from his years-long push for school vouchers.

But Republicans see a link between public funding for private schools and improved public education.

“One of the side effects of having widespread school choice would, in fact, be better outcomes for public schools. And the governor has never been shy about that. And in the very same session where school choice was passed, school funding became the biggest it’s ever been,” said James Dickey, the former chair of the Texas Republican Party.

Another issue taking center stage this election cycle: data centers. Both candidates for governor are trying to position themselves as champions on the issue.

Originally, the explosion of data centers was something Abbott welcomed last year, when he vowed to turn Texas into the epicenter of AI development. He has since ordered a pause on the construction of data centers until an audit is done after operators failed to report their water usage.

“If you’re not going to obey a basic law, we’re going to stop here until we get that very basic compliance. That’s not a change on attitude about the industry,” said Dickey.

Hinojosa is running anti-data center ads, but she has previously voted in favor of a bill that created a sales tax break for data centers. Still she says, “Abbott can take action now to end the data center madness. He could issue a moratorium until the Legislature meets to put in place real protections for Texans.”

“I think in some ways, what’s happening here is the fact that the landscape of issues is just not exactly what we thought the landscape was going to be,” said Republican analyst Ted Delisi. “So I think if you’d locked us all in a closet a year ago, you probably would have said that this would have been a conversation about property taxes. It might have been a conversation about the future of public education… now here we are, two and a half months out, and we’re talking data centers, right? This is part of the sort of fun of politics.”

Recent polling shifted the race for Texas governor from solid Republican to a likely Republican win, and some say it is competitive.

“He’s ahead, but not overwhelmingly so,” said Matthew Wilson, a Southern Methodist University professor of political science. “And this is likely to be a difficult year for Republicans nationally because it’s President Trump’s second midterm. Trump is relatively unpopular. The Democratic base is really fired up. So all of that means that all Republicans, including Gov. Abbott, are running against some headwinds.”

Abbott’s emphasis on certain policies could continue to shift with voter preferences. Ultimately, voters will decide which candidate they prefer in November.