( Spanish) — The Governor of Texas since 2015Republican Greg Abbott, will seek re-election in the elections next Tuesday, November 8, the same day that the momentous mid-term legislative elections are held at the national level, in which President Joe Biden will put his government to the test.
Abbott, 64, won the 2014 and 2018 Texas gubernatorial elections and is now seeking a third term against Democratic candidate Beto O’Rouke.
In recent years, a clear Republican tendency has been consolidated in Texas, one of the largest and most populous states in the country, and the Democrats have not won there since the time of Ann Richards, governor between 1991 and 1995.
Abbott, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court and a former state attorney general, will now try to continue that trend and settle into the governorship.
How has it been so far?
Abbott’s two terms as governor
Abbott is widely recognized as a supporter of the right to bear arms, and in his first campaign in 2014 even had the support of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Shortly after assuming his first term in 2015, passed two laws that expanded this right: one of them allowed carrying weapons in public, while the second enabled university students over 21 years of age to carry weapons inside the universities, although these had to be covered.
Also, Abbott usually post on Twitter photos of himself at shooting ranges.
This position has generated strong support among some Republican voters, who celebrate expanded rights, but also strong criticism among Democrats and moderates, especially after a series of mass shootings in the country and in Texas, the most recent this year in Uvalde.
During his time in power in Texas, Abbott has become a Republican benchmark, with a style of government marked by deregulation and “laissez-faire”, and the focus on restrictions on abortion, rejection of immigration and strict border monitoring, in addition to weapons.
One of the most critical moments of his mandate, however, came in the winter of 2021when a storm affected the State’s energy infrastructure and left millions of homes without light or heat in the midst of extreme cold.
Abbott was criticized for the lack of preparation for the crisis, and his image was even more damaged when he tried to blame renewable energies, such as wind and solar, for the cuts, when the authorities later determined that the problem was due to shortages of natural gas.
The current campaign in Texas
Abbott won this year the internal one of the Republican Party with 66.5% of the votes.
In addition to maintaining a tight grip on the Texas governorship, Abbott is aligned nationally with Donald Trump, and even supported the former president’s judicial attempts to delegitimize and reverse his electoral defeat in court in 2020 against Biden.
In recent months he has been trying to cement the right-wing electorate with a law restricting abortions in the state and other legislation that allows carry weapons without a special permit.
Abbott, a fierce critic of Biden’s immigration policies, started sending hundreds of volunteer migrants by bus to Washington and New York earlier this year. Texas has paid $12,707,720.92 to carry out these transfers, according to information obtained by , and the number of affected migrants ranges from 8,051 and 9,033.
According to a Quinnipiac University survey, Abbott has a high approval rating 51%, but at the same time 47% of the electorate disapproves of his administration.
With reporting from ‘s Dakin Andone, Maeve Reston, Eric Levenson, Madeline Holcombe, Daniel Dale, Gregory Krieg, Caroline Kelly, Devan Cole, Polo Sandoval and Andy Rose