The Texas Governor's Race Is Setting Records in Every Direction: a Fourth Term, $122 Million, 19 Million Registered Voters
Abbott would become the longest-serving governor in state history. Hinojosa would be the first Hispanic woman elected to the office. And both campaigns are running in the largest, most expensive electorate Texas has ever fielded.
HOUSTON - However Tuesday ends, the Texas governor's race has already rewritten the record book, The Center Square reported Thursday. Gov. Greg Abbott is running for a fourth term; if he wins and serves it out, he will become the longest-serving governor in Texas history, passing former Gov. Rick Perry's just over 14 years. No governor has ever served four terms, and Texas has no term limits. If Democrat Gina Hinojosa wins, she will be the first Hispanic woman - and only the third woman - elected governor of Texas; the last Democrat and woman elected to the office was Ann Richards in 1990.
The money set a record first. Abbott has raised $122 million, the most campaign money in state history, against $39 million for Hinojosa, according to the latest campaign finance reports compiled by Transparency USA. The electorate is a record too: more than 19 million Texans are registered to vote, and more than 5.7 million of them had already voted early as of Thursday, according to Secretary of State records - with the final early voting day, Friday, still to come.
What makes the race genuinely new for Abbott is the margin. He has won his previous elections by large amounts; this is the first election of his career in which polling shows him leading by only a few points, statistically tied with Hinojosa in most surveys. Only five Republicans have ever served as governor of Texas - Edmund Davis, William Clements Jr., George W. Bush, Perry and Abbott, first elected in 2014 - and a state that has elected 39 Democratic governors since 1846 is now deciding whether its Republican era gets a fourth term or a historic interruption.
Houston sits at the center of the arithmetic: Harris County is the state's largest electorate, its early vote has run at record pace all week, and its final-day turnout on Friday is one of the last measurable things standing between the campaigns and Election Day. The records are set; the result is the only number left.
