Texas Gubernatorial Race Result Gov. Greg Abbott Wins Re Election In Race Against Challenger Beto O Rourke Abc News Programs

The win underscored Abbott’s resilience. Despite record spending in the race that topped $200 million combined, O’Rourke was in danger of losing by double digits just four years after his narrow U.S. Senate defeat that was the closest by a Texas Democrat in decades. “Tonight, Texans sent a very resounding message,” Abbott said during a victory speech in the southern border town of McAllen. In fast-changing Texas — a boomtown of 29 million people that is becoming younger, less white and a magnet for big corporations — Abbott remained a GOP stronghold against a high-profile and tough challenger. Abbott capitalized on concerns about crime and inflation against a charismatic opponent who has opened the race to voters troubled by mass shootings, abortion bans and the state’s deadly grid failure in 2021. The result now puts two of Texas’ biggest political figures — one already running for the White House and the other possibly eyeing a bid of his own — on opposite paths. Abbott, 64, solidified his position as a front-runner for the 2024 presidency and secured his spot as the state’s second-longest-serving governor. He has maximized executive power, running a dramatic $4 billion operation on the U.S.-Mexico border in the name of curbing immigration while crushing challengers from his right and spending lavishly to sideline lawmakers. He will still be saddled with a solid GOP majority in the Legislature after a victory that aggressively courted Hispanic voters in South Texas and seized on economic worries and recession fears. More than 4 in 10 Texas voters rank the economy as the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of nearly 3,400 voters. O’Rourke now faces whether it’s time to move on. It was his third failed campaign for office in four years, further dimming the once-bright future of the former congressman who was catapulted to Democratic superstardom after narrowly winning a 2018 U.S. Senate race. O’Rourke did not say during a relentless campaign across Texas whether this run for governor would be his last. But the race revealed the damage his flamboyance did in the 2019 Democratic presidential primary, as he had to answer for the liberal positions he took on the national stage that alienated the Texans he needed to win back home. It also addressed the downside of President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, which Abbott took advantage of, running ads that cast O’Rourke and Biden together and portrayed their policies as one. O’Rourke tried to cheer Democratic voters for Uvalde’s firing and Abbott’s signing of an abortion ban that made no exceptions for rape or incest. About 8 in 10 Texas voters say the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, which recognized the constitutional right to abortion, was a factor in their votes. But only 1 in 10 say abortion is the top problem facing the country. The race stakes, O’Rourke said, crystallized over the summer after a gunman walked into Robb Elementary School in May and killed 19 children and two teachers. The shooting was one of the deadliest classroom attacks in US history and continued a grim string of mass shootings in Texas, where Abbott and Republicans have loosened gun laws and eliminated background checks for concealed weapons. Parents of some of the Uvalde victims rallied behind O’Rourke and railed against Abbott at campaign events and television ads. Abbott, meanwhile, tried to focus the fight on record numbers of border crossings from Mexico to the US and provocative measures that included busing hundreds of migrants to Democratic strongholds elsewhere. If Abbott completes another full term through 2026, he will have served 12 years as governor, second only to Rick Perry, who was in office for 14 years. They have overseen an era of explosive growth in Texas, which since 2010 has added nearly 4 million people, more than any other state. Hispanics accounted for half of that growth, accelerating demographic shifts that Democrats had long believed would eventually swing Texas their way. But Abbott, whose wife, Cecilia, is Texas’ first Hispanic first lady, sees no such political reckoning on the horizon. In Dallas, Danette Galvis, 48, voted for Abbott, saying she likes the job he’s done. In her view, Abbott sending immigrants to other states was “more of a message he was trying to send, not harming anything or anyone.” “We’re kind of under attack just because we’re on the border,” Galvis said.