Greg Abbott wants Texans to know that he is not worried.
That is important, because lately he has been behaving like a man with a smoke detector going off in every room of the house.
On August 23, Abbott appeared on ABC’s This Week. Jonathan Karl asked him about Republicans becoming nervous about Texas. Abbott dismissed the concern.
“What matters in elections is not in August,” Abbott said. “What matters in elections is November.”
Fair enough.
But somebody ought to tell his campaign calendar.
Seventy-two days before the election, Abbott suddenly seems to be everywhere.
On August 6, his campaign announced a $10 million statewide television advertising buy. The governor who has dominated Texas politics for more than a decade apparently decided Texans needed to see a great deal more of him.
Then came the announcements.
Electric bills.
Housing costs.
Property taxes.
Schools.
Foreign influence.
H-1B workers.
School bureaucracy.
Muslim washing facilities at airports.
Data centers.
Almost every morning, Texas wakes up, and Greg Abbott has discovered another problem requiring immediate attention.
Something changed
Abbott has been governor since 2015. Property taxes did not suddenly appear in August 2026. Neither did expensive electricity, high insurance premiums, or struggling public schools.
But suddenly affordability is at the center of his campaign.
On August 4, Abbott announced another initiative aimed at lowering electric bills. On August 5 came proposals to lower housing costs. On August 6 came the $10 million television campaign.
Then the pace accelerated.
August 17: a new plan to improve reading and math.
August 18: restrictions on foreign involvement in Texas schools and a proposal to prohibit schools from employing H-1B workers.
August 19: a proposal aimed at “bloated bureaucracy” in public schools.
Three days. Three education announcements.
August 20 found Abbott in Fort Worth promoting his five-point property-tax program, including the eventual elimination of school property taxes on homeowners.
August 21 brought another headline: Abbott asked the Justice Department to investigate Islamic ablution facilities at the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston airports.
And then Sunday morning America turned on ABC, and there was Greg Abbott again.
For a man who isn’t worried about August, he is certainly making very good use of it.
Then there are the data centers
This one is harder to explain away.
Texas welcomed enormous data-center investments. Abbott was governor while hundreds of data centers were built or planned across the state.
Then Texans began getting angry.
They worried about electricity.
They worried about water.
They worried about noise.
They worried about giant industrial facilities appearing near their homes.
A legislative hearing on August 19 attracted so many people that officials opened two overflow rooms at the Capitol.
Suddenly Abbott became the man protecting Texans from data centers.
His administration paused new projects while regulators conduct audits. Abbott says developers must provide their own power and water, pay their own way, and stay away from neighborhoods. CBS reported that opposition in rural and suburban Texas has gotten the attention not merely of Democrats but of Abbott and other Republican leaders.
On ABC, Abbott acknowledged that local opposition matters and said data centers must gain community approval. ABC also noted the awkward history: Abbott governed during the enormous Texas data-center expansion and is now taking a much tougher position as opposition grows.
That is not proof that Greg Abbott is frightened.
It is evidence that Greg Abbott can read a poll.
And the polls are no longer funny
Abbott has spent years running in a state where Republican statewide victories were treated almost as a formality.
That is no longer quite true.
A late-July Texas Pulse poll had Abbott at 46 percent and Democrat Gina Hinojosa at 45 percent—a one-point race. Other polls give Abbott healthier leads of roughly six or seven points, so nobody should pretend Hinojosa is suddenly the favorite.
But one point is something Greg Abbott has not had to stare at very often.
ABC brought that poll directly into its story about Republican worries over Texas. It also noted something curious about Abbott’s interview: although he repeatedly attacked Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, Abbott never once mentioned Hinojosa by name.
Perhaps that is strategy.
Perhaps it is coincidence.
Perhaps the governor simply doesn’t want to elevate his opponent.
But combine it with everything else.
The $10 million television buy.
The affordability tour.
The property-tax events.
The three-day education rollout.
The airport controversy.
The data-center reversal.
The national television interview.
One announcement proves nothing.
Ten begin to look like a pattern.
Abbott says November matters
And he is right.
The election will not be held in August.
Greg Abbott could win comfortably in November. Texas remains Republican territory; he has an enormous financial advantage, and an incumbent governor with his resources would be foolish to sit around waiting for his opponent to define the campaign.
But that is not the interesting part of this story.
The interesting part is that Abbott himself appears to have stopped treating Texas like a state Republicans automatically win.
For years, Democrats have been told Texas is about to turn purple. Republicans laughed.
Greg Abbott isn’t laughing quite as loudly anymore.
He is buying television.
He is traveling Texas.
He is talking about electric bills.
He is talking about insurance.
He is talking about property taxes.
He is talking about schools.
He is stopping data centers.
He is finding culture wars at airports.
And he is appearing on national television to explain that nobody should be worried.
Maybe Greg Abbott isn’t frightened.
But if this is what Greg Abbott looks like when he is completely relaxed, I would hate to see him nervous.
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