Scott sent in a piece about Gregg Abbott directing that ERCOT (the Texas electrical grid administrators) audit data centers in Texas. It’s paywalled, but here’s the official press release. Abbott is running scared because polling shows that Gina Hinojosa isn’t going to lose to him in a blowout. I know this because her campaign sends me two emails a day telling me so.
There’s a lot of completely valid skepticism about polling after Tuesday night’s miss in Wisconsin, but listening to the Downballot podcast, David Beard made the good point that Hong never polled over 50% in polls he saw. That’s really the magic number, because polls often have undecideds who “come home” to the party that they habitually support. So, in Texas, we’ve had years where candidates poll in the 40s, and maybe even do better than their opponents, but when voters come home, the Republican wins handily.
I found a good source for Texas polling from the University of Texas. It has numbers on both the governor’s and senate race, as well as data centers. Let’s look at data centers first:
That tall bar is “strongly oppose” and that’s all respondents. So, data centers are pretty unpopular.
Looking at the Hinojosa/Abbott race, Abbott is consistently ahead, but by small margins. He breaks 50 (50 and 51) in two of the eight polls tracked by the site. He will probably win, but not comfortably.
In the Talarico/Paxton race, Talarico breaks 50 in one poll, and he’s generally ahead of Paxton.
If I were Paxton, I’d be very concerned. If I’m Abbott, I’m moderately concerned. Plus, as we’ve seen, polling has gotten less reliable over the years, and I’m thinking that there’s going to be a big swing towards Democrats among the Mexicans and other hispanics in Texas. It’s very likely that pollsters won’t capture that swing.
This isn’t a hopium blog. Talarico winning would be a surprise. Hinojosa winning would be a huge surprise. As the polls have gotten closer, I’ve seen some people on BlueSky saying “there it goes” and thinking that Texas will do what it’s done over the years: elect Republicans after their habitual voters pay attention to the races. Well, that might happen. But this is the worst possible year for Republicans in Texas, so I’m not giving up.
