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By Jesus Mesa
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As much of the attention in Texas this fall has focused on the U.S. Senate race between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton, another statewide contest has been tightening under the radar: Governor Greg Abbott's bid for a record fourth term.
A new YouGov poll of 3,622 likely voters, conducted September 28 through October 5, has Democratic state Representative Gina Hinojosa narrowly ahead of Abbott, 48 percent to 47 percent, with 5 percent undecided. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Pollsters have traded leads all fall. A year ago, few Texas Republicans would have predicted that Abbott, who has won each of his three races for governor by double digits, would be scrapping for votes less than four weeks before Election Day.
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If Hinojosa wins, she would be the first Democrat to hold the office since Ann Richards left in 1995. If Abbott wins, he would be on track to become the longest-serving governor in Texas history.
Newsweek reached out to Hinojosa and Abbott campaigns for comment Wednesday.
Hinojosa Gets Strong Support From Black and Latino Voters
Age is the sharpest dividing line in the YouGov survey. Hinojosa takes 64 percent of voters under 30 and 58 percent of those aged 30 to 44. Among Texans 65 and older, Abbott wins 61 percent to 36 percent.
Gender splits the electorate almost evenly in both directions, with women backing Hinojosa 52 percent to 42 percent and men favoring Abbott by an identical margin.
On race and ethnicity, Hinojosa leads Hispanic voters 58 percent to 37 percent and Black voters 80 percent to 12 percent. Abbott carries white voters by 21 points, a lead built mostly on white Texans without a college degree, who back him 68 percent to 29 percent. White college graduates are essentially a coin flip at 47 percent for Hinojosa and 46 percent for Abbott.
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Republican strategist Mike Madrid, who has spent years tracking Hispanic voting behavior, said the numbers reflect something the political establishment has been slow to grasp.
"People, I think, broadly are failing to understand that the Latino vote is the largest swing vote in America," Madrid told Newsweek in an interview.
Democrats are running a little better in the Senate race. Talarico leads Paxton 50 percent to 44 percent in the same poll, and he wins 97 percent of Harris voters to Hinojosa's 95 percent. Abbott, meanwhile, holds 84 percent of 2024 Trump voters, two points more than Paxton. One caveat on the comparison: YouGov allocated undecided voters in the Senate question but did not do so for governor, which helps explain why 5 percent remain undecided there compared with 3 percent in the Senate race.
Then there is Trump. Only 44 percent of Texas likely voters approve of the job he is doing, and 51 percent strongly disapprove, in a sample that says it backed him over Kamala Harris by 12 points in 2024.
What Earlier Polls Show
Which candidate is ahead depends a lot on which pollster you read.
In June, a New York Times/Siena College poll of 656 likely voters found Abbott with the backing of 51 percent of voters and Hinojosa with 44 percent. When Times/Siena went back into the field from September 21 to 30, Hinojosa led 49 percent to 46 percent among 615 likely voters. Marist University's September 17 to 20 survey of 1,139 registered voters landed on the same 49-46 result.
ReconMR and the Siena Research Institute also showed Hinojosa leading 49 percent to 45 percent, a reversal from July, when the same poll had Abbott ahead by a single point.
The Fox News poll, conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research from September 24 to 28, put Abbott up 52 percent to 47 percent among 881 likely voters. Big Data Poll and Slingshot Strategies each had the governor ahead by 4 or 5 points, as did a Stratus Intelligence poll paid for by the Republican group Texans for a Conservative Majority.
In between sit an N+ Univision/YouGov poll that found the two candidates deadlocked at 47 percent and an Overton Insights/Texas Public Policy Foundation survey with Abbott ahead 46.9 percent to 45.8 percent.
Over the summer, the governor's cushion was wider. Abbott led by 7 points in a University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll in early June, and a late July Texas Southern University poll found him leading 49 percent to 43 percent. No public poll since mid-September has shown him up by more than 5.
A Blue Texas? It Might Happen
Democrats have been promising a breakthrough in Texas for three decades. No Democrat has won statewide office there since 1994, and Trump carried the state by 13 points in 2024. Abbott beat Beto O'Rourke by roughly 11 points in 2022.
Hinojosa is a different kind of candidate from O'Rourke. A civil rights and union lawyer who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, she made her name in the Texas House as the chief antagonist of Abbott's school voucher push, and her campaign has since widened its focus to grocery bills, data centers and what she calls corruption in the governor's office.
"Every poll tells the same story: Texans are tired of working more and getting less," Hinojosa said over the summer.
Her numbers among Hispanic voters, who swung toward Republicans in 2024, may matter most. Madrid said Washington misread what happened in 2024.
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"Most people were thinking it was part of this permanent realignment. A lot of people who understand the Latino vote were saying it's not that at all," he said.
Independents are also drifting her way, according to ReconMR, which found her with large leads in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio and Abbott ahead in rural areas.
Abbott keeps the upper hand on the issues Republicans have run on for a decade. On securing the border, voters picked him over Hinojosa 53 percent to 39 percent, and he led on keeping Texans safe, while she led on making prices more affordable. He also has far more money. At the end of June, Abbott had about $67 million on hand to Hinojosa's $3 million, though she has said her campaign raised $20 million since January.
The Latest on the Race
There may never be a debate. Hinojosa accepted an invitation for a one-hour debate on Thursday, October 15, in Fort Worth, hosted by NBCUniversal Television Stations Texas and Hearst Newspapers Texas and broadcast in English and Spanish. Her campaign says Abbott let the deadline pass, and that he also ignored a September debate hosted by Nexstar.
Abbott's team has preferred social media. The governor recently posted an image of Hinojosa as a Lotería card, the Mexican bingo game. Campaign spokesperson Eduardo Leal defended the post, calling Hinojosa an "out-of-touch Democrat socialist."
From the Hinojosa side, the reply was an invitation. Abbott "has to lie because he's been governor for 12 years," spokesperson Tommy Kubischek said, adding that the governor should make his case at a debate.
Hinojosa is also courting voters well outside her party. At the Texas Tribune Festival, she unveiled an ad featuring Lynn Davenport, a self-described MAGA conservative who believed the 2020 election was stolen and now says she will vote for the Democrat. Abbott was invited to the festival and didn't respond.
What Happens Next
Early voting begins October 19 and ends October 30. Election Day is November 3, and the Fort Worth debate, whether Abbott shows up or not, comes four days before the first ballots are cast.
Turnout could decide it. The groups carrying Hinojosa in the YouGov poll, younger voters and Hispanic voters, tend to skip midterms at higher rates than the older white Texans who make up Abbott's base. And the governor has the money to stay on television through the final stretch.
Hinojosa's fate may be tied to Talarico's. A Senate race that drives Democratic-leaning voters to the polls would help her more than anything her own campaign can buy.
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