Greg Abbott's re-election campaign ran an ad holding up a photo of Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old shot to death in Houston in 2022, and blamed her death on 'liberal policies.' Her mother says she never agreed to it, that the ad set off harassment of her family, and that she has now stepped back from the law she was pushing in Arlene's name.
Greg Abbott's office released 1,374 pages of his communications with Elon Musk's companies — and blacked out all but about 200. A judge ruled his opponent has 'an immediate legal right' to see them. Abbott appealed, a week before an election in which Musk gave nearly a fifth of his latest fundraising haul.
Texas's report on women who die during and after pregnancy usually comes out by early September. This year, the first one with data from after Texas banned abortion, the state health department Greg Abbott runs says it's aiming for Dec. 1, a month after Abbott faces voters. His office says 'there is no delay.' It did the same thing in 2022.
Abbott's new 'Transition Your Kids – or Face Prosecution' ad rests on Hinojosa's vote against HB 1106, a bill saying it isn't child abuse for a parent to refuse a child's pronouns. Voting no on it allowed nothing — it passed, and Abbott signed it. In 2022, Abbott himself ordered the state to investigate parents of transgender kids for child abuse.
Nine days before the election, Abbott told Fox News his Democratic opponent backs Sharia law because the Council on American-Islamic Relations endorsed her — a group he branded a terrorist organization with reasons lifted from an anti-Muslim think tank's report.
Forget the slogans. Judged by what they voted for, what they did, and what they refused to stop, this is what Republicans in Congress stand for, on 20 issues, with the receipts.
Abbott's campaign announced 11 Democratic sheriffs backing his reelection, and the endorsement list on its website named 12. The sheriffs of Val Verde, Zapata and Webb counties say they never endorsed him. Days later, two of their names were still on it.
Abbott's office insists 'no permits have been approved.' Watchdogs found stormwater approvals, fast-tracked air permits and public notices for data centers starting the day after his order — and the agency suspended the stormwater permits the day after the watchdogs went public.
A Texas Tribune analysis found Greg Abbott has raised about $9 million from data center-related donors since July 2025 — $2.8 million of it, his biggest monthly haul, after he 'paused' the industry. His opponent got one $25,000 check.
A draft agenda put the sale of 1,300 acres in Cameron County on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission's closed-door calendar for November 5. All nine commissioners are Greg Abbott appointees. Two sources told Texas Monthly the land is Boca Chica State Park and the buyer is SpaceX. After reporters asked, the agency said the sale isn't on its November agenda.
Greg Abbott has renewed or amended his border disaster proclamation at least 69 times since 2021 — 21 of them since Trump took office and crossings hit record lows. The 'emergency' lets his agencies skip competitive bidding: more than $5 million in no-bid contracts since January 2025, for rifles, apartments and a Ford F-150.
At least 500,000 voter registrations and updates Texans made through DPS's driver's-license website since October 2025 never reached county election offices. DPS was told about registration problems in March. Abbott, whose appointee runs Texas elections, sent reporters' questions elsewhere. Voting rights groups have now sued.
Texas Monthly obtained the nine-page, unsigned document Abbott's lawyers walked the state securities commissioner through, laying out ways to bring government power against the East Plano Islamic Center. His team concluded there was no securities case. Paxton filed one, and the commissioner says he was told to resign.
Under a 3% budget-cut order from Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Dustin Burrows, Texas's health agency has asked to eliminate the Children's Autism Program, which paid for therapy for 583 kids last year with 1,000 more waiting. The same order exempted Abbott's private school voucher program.
PEN America counted nearly 12,000 school book bans nationwide in 2025-2026, the most ever — and more than 8,100 were in Texas, driven by SB 13, the library law Abbott signed in June 2025. Some districts used AI to pick which books to pull.
Five weeks before Election Day, Greg Abbott hasn't accepted a debate with Gina Hinojosa, Ken Paxton has committed to none after promising 'of course' he'd debate James Talarico, and Tom Cotton is sitting out Arkansas TV's debates in favor of one hosted by Salem Media.
Greg Abbott is spending $12 million on an ad claiming his opponent 'voted to' raise property taxes 40 times. The Houston Chronicle found she never directly voted to raise property taxes — the 40 votes were votes on seven GOP bills limiting local governments and their amendments, and Abbott's own second ad says only local governments levy property taxes.
Texas's Medicaid backlog exploded as state workers took on the new SNAP rules in Trump's budget bill. A pregnant Houston mom waited into her second trimester. San Antonio's mayor asked Gov. Greg Abbott to step in. His agency won't even say what's causing it.
Updated October 15: David Rouzer skipped a UNC Wilmington forum and Russell Fry backed out of an NAACP forum six hours before it started; Tom Cotton's only agreed debate fell through. October 12: Keith Self, asked on national TV whether he would debate, called the district 'my seat.' October 10: Cliff Bentz declined four debate invitations because accepting would make his opponent look 'credible,' Jim Pillen called debates 'theater,' and Julie Fedorchak pulled out of North Dakota's public TV debate. Earlier: Jeff Hurd declined televised debate invitations and agreed to one 30-minute session before a friendly audience instead. John McGuire says he'll debate when his opponent apologizes for raising a BlackRock sale the disclosure records in his wife's retirement account. They join fourteen Republicans we have already documented ducking the one event they can't script.
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Political ads have always been sleazy, but MAGA Republicans are no longer just stretching the truth: they are using AI and digital tools to manufacture lies.
Texas has 655 data centers operating, planned or under construction, and its counties can't require one to keep its distance from a house. A new Berkeley study finds homes within a mile lose 7.2% of their value. Abbott promised setbacks in June and says legislators need more information first.
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Big Tech is building data centers in our backyards.
Greg Abbott's campaign used AI to swap an American flag for a transgender flag in a photo of his opponent talking to a child about a closed school. Ken Paxton scripted a speech his opponent never gave. Marsha Blackburn put hers in a prison jumpsuit. Cindy Hyde-Smith registered a domain in her opponent's name.
Texas ranks 40th of 50 on the measures we track, with the second-worst food insecurity and second-worst women's health scores in the country. Greg Abbott signed the abortion ban and the school voucher law, never expanded Medicaid, and now runs on affordability after property tax levies rose to $89.4 billion and home insurance premiums rose 79%. Here is the record, and what each of the seventeen Republicans running for reelection has been busy with.
Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Insurance to act on home insurance costs on August 24, 2026, citing a 79% premium increase in six years. In 2025 his Legislature killed both bills that would have addressed it, insurance was not one of his seven emergency items, and it was not on his 18-item special session agenda either.
Abbott's new affordability plan promises to cut property taxes in half by zeroing out school taxes on homesteads. He has been governor since 2015, and statewide property tax levies have risen from $51.2 billion to $89.4 billion on his watch. Nearly 4 in 10 homesteads already owe no school tax, and Texas's 4.1 million renters get nothing.
On Monday, Trump answered the seven in ten Americans who don't want a data center near them by telling them they're choosing to be poor. Thirteen months earlier he had signed the executive order that hands those data centers federal land, skipped environmental reviews and taxpayer-backed loans.
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Greg Abbott announced that Texas had removed more than a million people from its voter rolls.
Tony Gonzales resigned on April 14. Greg Abbott still has not called a special election, and the seat is not on track to be filled until January — a vacancy of roughly 260 days. A Democrat resigned the same day in California; voters there have already picked his replacement.
Texas added $1 to every car insurance policy to fight catalytic converter theft. A board Abbott appoints spent at least $30 million of it on AI cameras that log where Texans drive. Abbott stopped it Thursday night — the night before the Tribune published.
More than 1.2 million Texans have suspended voter registrations with the November election barely two months away. Here is the record of the two Texas Republicans on the November ballot who have spent years working those voter rolls — and what you can do before the October 5 deadline.
Abbott paused data center approvals in August of an election year and said Texas needed more information first. State regulators approved the schedule this week: the report lands December 10. Election Day is November 3.
Someone has to pay to power the AI build-out. In Texas, Florida, Ohio, Georgia and New Mexico, these five Republicans have spent the last few years making sure it's you.
Abbott courted data centers and let their tax break balloon for eleven years. In August of an election year he announced a pause — and lifelong Republicans in small towns say they can see exactly what it is. His approval with rural voters has fallen 15 points, and he's now one point ahead of a Democrat.
Abbott wants a law banning Texas public schools from sponsoring H-1B visas — applied to teachers already here, not just new hires. Districts use those visas to fill critical teacher shortages, in roles such as bilingual education.
Abbott is reviewing all state and federal grant money to DFW and Houston airports over foot-washing stations Muslims use before prayer. DFW's has sat inside the airport's interfaith chapel since 2019; Houston's, described as for people of all faiths, since 2024.
Abbott Impact matches your contacts against the Texas voter file, shows you each person's party, birth month and election-by-election turnout back to 2016, and tracks daily who hasn't voted yet. You get points. Your contacts were never asked.
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says Abbott's data center crackdown is 'smoke and mirrors,' that he's never gotten a meeting with the Governor in 12 years, and that other Republicans are staying quiet because they're scared of Abbott's $105 million war chest.
Abbott calls city-owned utilities like San Antonio's CPS Energy 'energy monopolies' and wants retail providers let in. CPS says it has the lowest combined residential rates in the state. Electricity companies and their PACs have given Abbott's campaign at least $230,000.
Abbott appoints all 21 board members of the Nueces River Authority and, with a board majority vote, can remove them. It may run out of money for its desalination plant by the end of August. He has no such power over the city council he's threatening to take over — and he's fighting to keep his emails with the river authority secret.
On July 31, delta-8 became a felony in Texas — seven years after Abbott signed the law that made it legal. A month earlier, the head of the country's largest Anheuser-Busch distributor gave him $500,000.
Abbott branded Texas the 'epicenter of AI development' and handed data centers one of the biggest tax breaks in the country. Now, in an election year, he says he's the one protecting us from them.
A governor, an attorney general, a state bill and a 50-member congressional caucus have all mobilized against a Sharia takeover. In Arkansas it traces back to a hate group's blog post and a small subdivision that's been there for two decades.
Christian Castro has sat in a Texas jail for two months because Governor Abbott's office hasn't signed his extradition paperwork. A Minnesota prosecutor has now written more than once. Abbott's office says it doesn't comment.
Texas Monthly reviewed 1,300 pages of emails and found Abbott's CAIR proclamation tracks a report written by a fellow at a think tank the SPLC lists as an anti-Muslim hate group — including a claim about the FBI that appears to be false.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order siccing state health agencies on hospitals and providers over 'birth tourism' — threatening their licenses in a state already near the bottom for women's health.
After ICE shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott went silent for over a week — then offered only that 'any loss of life is tragic.'
CNBC just ranked the 10 worst states to live in America for 2026. Every single one is a Republican trifecta — including Sarah Sanders' Arkansas and Greg Abbott's Texas.
