2022 Texas gubernatorial election

The 2022 Texas gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Texas. Incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott won re-election to a third term, defeating Democratic nominee and former Congressman, Beto O'Rourke. All statewide elected offices are currently held by Republicans. In his previous gubernatorial race in 2018, Abbott won with 55.8% of the vote.

The Democratic and Republican primaries were held on March 1, 2022. O'Rourke and Abbott won outright majorities in their respective primaries, and therefore did not participate in the May 24 runoffs.

Texas has not elected a Democratic candidate for governor since Ann Richards in 1990. Additionally, Abbott had a strong approval rating on election day, with 55% of voters approving to 45% disapproving. Beto O'Rourke, who gained national attention in 2018 for his unusually close and competitive campaign against Senator Ted Cruz, was widely viewed as a rising star in the Texas Democratic Party and potential challenger for Abbott, but a failed run for President of the United States in 2020 prompted criticisms of opportunism via Republican attempts to brand him as anti-law enforcement and his former comments on guns.

Abbott won by 10.9%, a slightly smaller margin of victory than his 13.3% margin in 2018 in spite of a much more Republican national climate in 2022, making this the closest gubernatorial election in Texas since 2006, and the closest election of Abbott's entire political career since his first race for the Texas Supreme Court in 1998. Beto O'Rourke, meanwhile, performed 8.3% worse than his 2018 Senate run, but he still won the highest share for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate since Ann Richards received 45.9% in her unsuccessful reelection bid against George W. Bush in 1994. Abbott's raw vote total was less than his 4.65 million in 2018, while O'Rourke set a record of most raw votes for a Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate at around 3.55 million, but it was also less than his 4.04 million vote total in the 2018 Senate race.

Abbott carried 235 out of 254 counties, flipping the heavily Hispanic counties of Culberson and Zapata and becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the latter in the state's history (though Zapata had earlier voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election), while O'Rourke became the first Democratic gubernatorial candidate to win the county of Fort Bend since 1974. O'Rourke outperformed Joe Biden two years prior among Latino voters, though his performance with them was still worse than past nominees.

Republican primary
On June 4, 2021, Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West announced his resignation as party chair. West criticized Gov. Greg Abbott's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas. The history of conflict between West and Abbott included a lawsuit by West and other Republicans challenging Abbott's extension of the early voting period in 2020, as well as a protest outside the Governor's Mansion over pandemic-related shutdowns as well as mask mandates. On July 4, 2021, West announced that he would challenge Abbott in the 2022 gubernatorial primary. Both West and fellow gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines were considered more conservative than Abbott. On March 1, 2022, Abbott won the Republican primary by a smaller margin than in 2018.

Nominee

 * Greg Abbott, incumbent governor and former Texas Attorney General

Eliminated in primary

 * Paul G. Belew, criminal defense attorney
 * Danny Harrison, businessman
 * Kandy Kaye Horn, philanthropist
 * Don Huffines, former member of the Texas Senate
 * Ricky Lynn Perry, staffing agency employee
 * Chad Prather, podcaster / talk show host, activist, and stand-up comedian
 * Allen West, former chair of the Texas Republican Party and former U.S. representative for FL's 22nd congressional district

Withdrawn

 * Martin Holsome, former Rusk city councillor
 * Kurt Schwab, military veteran

Declined

 * George P. Bush, Texas Land Commissioner and member of the Bush family (ran for Attorney General)
 * Christi Craddick, Texas Railroad Commissioner
 * Glenn Hegar, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (running for re-election)
 * Sid Miller, Texas Agriculture Commissioner (running for re-election)
 * Rick Perry, former governor and former U.S. Secretary of Energy
 * Joe Straus, former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives

Polling

 * Graphical summary

Results
[[File:2022 Texas Governor Republican Primary.svg|thumb|Results by county:{{legend|#E27F7F|Abbott}}

{{legend|#FFB2B2|40–50%}}

{{legend|#E27F7F|50–60%}}

{{legend|#D75D5D|60–70%}}

{{legend|#D72F30|70–80%}}

{{legend|#C21B18|80–90%}}]]

Nominee

 * Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. representative for TX's 16th congressional district, nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018 and candidate for President of the United States in 2020

Eliminated in primary

 * Inocencio Barrientez, fitness trainer
 * Michael Cooper, pastor, candidate for lieutenant governor in 2018, and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020
 * Joy Diaz, reporter
 * Rich Wakeland, former advisor to Public Utility Commissioner Ken Anderson

Disqualified

 * Jack Daniel Foster Jr., teacher
 * R. Star Locke, veteran

Declined

 * Steve Adler, Mayor of Austin
 * Joaquin Castro, U.S. representative for TX's 20th congressional district (endorsed O’Rourke)
 * Julián Castro, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former mayor of San Antonio, and candidate for President of the United States in 2020
 * Wendy Davis, former state senator, nominee for governor in 2014, and nominee for TX's 21st congressional district in 2020
 * Veronica Escobar, U.S. representative for TX's 16th congressional district, former El Paso commissioner, and former El Paso county judge (running for re-election)
 * Lina Hidalgo, Harris County judge

Results
[[File:2022 Texas Governor Democratic Primary.svg|thumb|Results by county:O'Rourke:

{{legend|#0d0596|O'Rourke—>90%}}

{{legend|#3933e5|O'Rourke—80–90%}}

{{legend|#584cde|O'Rourke—70–80%}}

{{legend|#6674de|O'Rourke—60–70%}}

{{legend|#7996e2|O'Rourke—50–60%}}

{{legend|a5b0ff|O'Rourke—40–50%}}Wakeland:

{{legend|#87de87|Wakeland—40–50%}}Barrientez:

{{legend|#ff80b2|Barrientez—50–60%}}No vote:

{{legend|#cccccc|No vote}}]]

Declared

 * Delilah Barrios, environmental activist

Declared

 * Mark Jay Tippetts, attorney, former Lago Vista city councilman, and nominee for governor in 2018

Withdrew/disqualified

 * Dan Behrman, software engineer, internet personality, candidate for Texas House of Representatives in 2014, and candidate for President of the United States in 2020
 * Andrew Jewell, industrial maintenance technician, Secretary of Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Chair of Texas Libertarian Party Radical Caucus, and candidate for Dallas County Commissioner District 3 in 2020

Declared

 * Jacqueline Abernathy, public health policies consultant and American Solidarity Party candidate
 * Deirdre Dickson-Gilbert, public educator (previously ran for Democratic nomination)
 * Ricardo Turullols-Bonilla, retired educator and write-in candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020

Disqualified

 * Patrick Wynne, software engineer, data scientist and U.S. Navy veteran (Reform Party)

Declined

 * Matthew McConaughey, Academy Award-winning actor (no declared party affiliation)

Polling

 * Aggregate polls
 * Graphical summary


 * Greg Abbott vs. Julián Castro
 * Greg Abbott vs. Beto O'Rourke with Matthew McConaughey as an independent


 * Greg Abbott vs. Don Huffines
 * Greg Abbott vs. Matthew McConaughey


 * Greg Abbott vs. generic Democrat
 * Greg Abbott vs. generic opponent

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Culberson (largest city: Van Horn)
 * Zapata (largest city: Zapata)

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Fort Bend (largest city: Sugar Land)

By congressional district
Abbott won 25 of 38 congressional districts.

Analysis
Texas Democrats hoped for Beto O'Rourke to achieve an upset over the incumbent Greg Abbott, which did not materialize. Abbott won by about 10.9%, down from 13.3% in 2018. Abbott's margin was slightly larger than aggregate polling, but virtually in line with the last poll conducted. He won the vast majority of counties, mostly rural, and by significantly wide margins. In particular, 34 counties, mainly in West Texas and the Texas panhandle, gave Abbott over 90% of the vote. This was the most by any Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate, and the most for any candidate since Democrat Allan Shivers' 1954 re-election.

Abbott won the three largest metro areas in the state, which include Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, and San Antonio–New Braunfels. He also won all of the state's mid-sized metro areas outside of the Rio Grande Valley, which include Corpus Christi along the coastal bend; Waco, Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood, and Bryan–College Station in Central Texas; Beaumont–Port Arthur, Tyler and Longview in East Texas; Lubbock, Abilene, and Midland-Odessa in West Texas; and Amarillo in the Panhandle. Abbott also won an urban county, Tarrant, home to Fort Worth and did well in the suburban counties of the Texas Triangle, winning Brazoria, Galveston, and Montgomery counties around Houston; Comal and Guadalupe around San Antonio; Collin, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman, and Rockwall in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex; and Williamson in Greater Austin.

In DFW and Austin specifically, Republican strength has declined somewhat in these metros, with Abbott carrying Collin, Denton, Tarrant, and Williamson by 10.07%, 12.81%, 4.11%, and 0.62% respectively, down from his margins of 19.48%, 20.60%, 10.64%, and 10.71% from 2018. Excluding the largest metro areas, Abbott improved on his 2018 margins.

O'Rourke, despite his loss, did best in most of Texas's urban centers. He carried Travis, home to the state capital Austin (72.6% - 25.9%), his best performance in the state; El Paso, his home county, 63.4% - 35%; Dallas (62.8% - 35.9%); Bexar (57.5% - 41.1%); and Harris (54% - 44.5%). He also carried Hays, a rapidly growing county south of Austin which contains San Marcos and Texas State University along with fast-growing cities of Kyle, and Buda by 54.5% - 43.7%. Despite improving on 2018 nominee Lupe Valdez's margins in these counties, he did worse in all of them compared to his Senate campaign in 2018, and, excluding Travis and Hays, worse than Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. The only county O'Rourke flipped was suburban Fort Bend outside Houston, which voted for Abbott by 0.2% in 2018, but voted for O'Rourke by 4.68% in this election.

Outside the Texas Triangle and Trans Pecos, the only other area O'Rourke won was the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley along the U.S. border with Mexico. His performance was worse than Valdez's and his own from 2018, which continued the trend of rural Hispanic voters away from the Democrats towards Republicans, but he did slightly outperform Biden from 2020. Counties that voted for Biden by single digits like Duval (2.61%), Starr (5%), and Maverick (9.45%); voted for O'Rourke 11.02%, 17.85%, and 17.68% respectively. Despite this improvement from the 2020 presidential race, Abbott flipped two heavily Hispanic counties, Zapata and Culberson (in the Trans Pecos).

Exit polls according to NBC News showed Abbott winning male (58% - 41%) and female voters (51% - 48%), whites (66% - 33%), and other races (67% - 31%), voters over 45 (60% - 39%), college graduates (52% - 47%) and non-college graduates (56% - 43%), and voters who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election (94% - 5%). O'Rourke won black voters (84% - 15%), Latinos (57% - 40%), Asians (52% - 48%), voters between 18 and 44 (54% - 44%), Independents (49%-47%) and moderates (60% - 38%).

Fox News Voter Analysis exit polls showed Abbott winning male (59%-39%) and female voters (51%-48%); whites (68%-30%) and other races and ethnicities (53%-42%); voters over 45 (61%-37%); college graduates (54%-44%), non-college graduates (56%-43%); white men (70%-28%); white women (67%-32%). O'Rourke won African Americans (81%-18%), Latinos (56%-42%); African American men (76%-24%); African American women (85%-13%) and Latina women (61%-37%). O'Rourke also won Latino men (55%-45%).