Texas Governor 2026
Election day is November 3, 2026. A statewide contest in Texas.
Who is favoured in Texas Governor?
Run the forecaster to pull current reporting on this race, score it issue by issue, and see who it favours.
What the Texas Governor election decides
State government decides most of what touches daily life directly: schools, roads, policing, public health, utilities regulation, and the state's share of healthcare programs. A governor's veto and budget proposal set the boundaries of what a legislature can do.
A governor signs or vetoes state law, proposes the state budget, commands the state's emergency response, and in most states shapes how elections themselves are administered. Texas decides this alongside its 38 House seats and a U.S. Senate seat. Governors are judged on results inside the state rather than on national mood alone, which is why governor's races often break differently from federal contests held the same day.
How Texas votes
Texas is the largest Republican-led state, with booming and diversifying metros set against a vast conservative rural base. Energy, the border and the grid define its statewide races, which have tightened without yet flipping. That backdrop is the ground any Texas campaign fights on, and it is what the Electorate HQ simulation reads first when it weighs a ticket's platform against this contest.
About this race
The 2026 Texas gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 2026, to elect the governor of Texas. Democratic state representative Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, who was seeking a record fourth term, in an upset victory.
Primary elections were held on March 3, 2026. Facing minimal opposition, Abbott won the Republican nomination with 82% of the vote. Hinojosa won the Democratic nomination with 59% of the vote over a field of candidates that included former congressman Chris Bell.
Hinojosa is the first Democrat to win a gubernatorial election in Texas since Ann Richards in 1990, while Abbott is the first incumbent governor of Texas to lose reelection since Richards' reelection bid in 1994.
Latest coverage of the Texas Governor race
Texas 2026 Election ResultsTexas election results: Democrats break decades-long losing streak in Texas as Talarico wins Senate race, Hinojosa unseats AbbottTexas governor 2026: What to know about Greg Abbott and Gina HinojosaDemocrat Gina Hinojosa declared winner in Texas gubernatorial raceTexas General Election Is Coming: What to Know Before You VoteWho’s running for Texas governor? Meet Greg Abbott’s challengersThe rest of the Texas ballot
Every Texas House district, the counties inside each one, and an address lookup that resolves your exact districts are on the Texas state page.
Other 2026 races in Texas
Analysis covering Texas
Ten whole congressional districts fit inside Los Angeles County
Seventy-nine of the 435 districts sit entirely within a single county. Ten of them are in one county in California.
One seat covers 34 square kilometres. One seat covers 1,713,379.
New York's 12th and Alaska's at-large seat each elect one member of the House. On the ground, one is fifty thousand times the size of the other.