Governor's Race Moved to Coin Flip Column
after Candidates' Dueling East Texas Events
Texas General Election Polls
General Election Rankings
Capitol Inside
October 1, 2026
Capitol Inside stayed one step ahead of the pack on Thursday when it shifted the fight between third-term Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Democrat Gina Hinojosa from leans Republican to toss up with 33 days left before the final ballots are cast in the general election.
The Cook Political Report moved the governor's race in the Lone Star State from likely to leans GOP today in a move that brought it in line with most of the other forecasts for the upcoming midterm vote.
While Abbott remains a slight favorite, the state representative who's trying to oust him has owned the momentum and closed a substantial gap in the recent polling that's shown her within striking distance and leading the race in at least two surveys conducted here this month. Prominent election analyst Nate Silver's newsletter Silver Bulletin updated its ongoing polling average on the Texas governor's race on Wednesday to show Abbott up on Hinojosa by 1.8 points heading into the final five weeks before the election.
Texas Democrat James Talarico - in contrast - is leading Republican Ken Paxton by 3.4 points in the U.S. Senate race based on the Silver Bulletin's weighted average of the polls that have been taken on what's shaping up to be the most expensive race for the upper house of Congress in history.
While Hinojosa is hoping to ride a massive blue wave into the Governor's Mansion, Abbott has been trying to dodge it by circling the wagons and appearing before small handpicked audiences in controlled settings where the questions are pre-approved and posed for canned talking-point answers.
Dueling events that the gubernatorial competitors staged in East Texas on the same day this week illustrated the dramatic differences between a surging Hinojosa campaign and the third-term incumbent who appears dead-set on avoiding a ferocious backlash over data centers and an affordability crisis that he says he has a plan to defuse.
Hinojosa drew 800 cheering supporters to a rally in the ruby red city of Longview on Tuesday when Abbott touted a plan to bring prices down in the tiny town of Hemphill at a roundtable where the public was not admitted, the media's participation restricted and the local community's feelings bruised in its wake.
"There has been a lot said on social media about Gov. Greg Abbott’s visit to Hemphill today," the Sabine County Reporter said in a Facebook post Tuesday. "Some of it has been disappointment. Some has been legitimate criticism. And unfortunately, some of it has gotten personal and downright ugly."
The hometown newspaper said Abbott's team had "specific parameters" for the roundtable's cast of participants who it expected to be property owners and "everyday taxpapers, parents and small-business owners." According to the local paper post, the governor's camp did not want to see elected officials from the area or "a room full of VIPs" at the event that it put together in a city with a population of 1,029 in a county where President Donald Trump won 89 percent of the vote in 2024.
This was not a town hall," the newspaper said. "It was not a public meet-and-greet. And it certainly wasn’t a party."
The Sabine County Reporter sought to temper the analysis with positive remarks about the governor and his plan to attack rising costs. But it said the small and selective nature of the audience had caused bad blood among the residents in a town way off the beaten path where they'd been excited about the chance to interact with the governor.
Abbott's choice for the roundtable in a county where he won 90 percent in 2022 prompted speculation that the governor is trying to hide out from an oncoming blue wave and a backlash that he'd failed to anticipate over data centers he'd championed and other high-voltage issues that are driving the GOP's odds down in Texas more than most other states. The governor's remote choice for a closed event came on the same day that Austin state representative who's trying to knock him off attracted one of the largest crowds for a political event ever in Gregg County where Abbott governor received 73 percent in his last re-election race.
Texas House Republican Joanne Shofner of Nacogdoches appeared with Abbott at the Feed Store in Hemphill as the lawmaker for Sabine County and five other rural counties on near the Louisiana line. But the local weekly gave the impression that the event there may have done more harm than good.
"There are six counties in our district, and this was intentionally a very small roundtable," according to the local newspaper critique. "If you are trying to put roughly 20 to 30 everyday residents around a table while representing six counties, you are talking about perhaps three, four or five people from Sabine County.
"There was never going to be enough room for every deserving business owner, educator, farmer, logger, healthcare worker, homeowner, parent or taxpayer in Sabine County," the Sabine County Reporter added. "And somehow, before the day was even started, we managed to turn something significant for Sabine County into accusations, finger-pointing and personal attacks over who got invited and who didn’t."
Capitol Inside also relocated the fight between Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick from leans GOP to the toss up column as well on Thursday based on the theory that the Texas Senate president would find it tough to win if Abbott does not. Capitol Inside moved the race for the U.S. Senate here from toss up to leans Democrat in August when the lion's share of forecasts had it ranked as a coin flip or leans Republican.
While most election trackers have the Paxton-Talarico bout for the Texas Senate seat leanding Democrat, the Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato still have it on their toss up lists. But most of the experts agree that Abbott could be in big trouble if Talarico beats Paxton.
more to come ...
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