After Decades in Power, Texas Republicans Campaign on Affordability For years, Greg Abbott built his political brand around border security, school choice, public safety, and an increasingly aggressive conservative agenda. Legislative sessions revolved around immigration, Operation Lone Star, parental rights, and repeated clashes with the federal government. Affordability existed in the background, although it rarely occupied center stage. Now it does. Abbott's reelection cam

Remember when we were told those giant orange buoys would secure the border? Texas remembers. So does the Rio Grande. For days now, South Texans have watched surreal images of enormous orange floating barriers, some weighing nearly a ton, drifting helplessly down the Rio Grande, piling against international bridges, disrupting commercial traffic, forcing emergency declarations, and turning one of the busiest trade corridors in North America into an obstacle course. What was m

Greg Abbott spent years courting data center developers with tax exemptions and a permissive interconnection framework, treating incoming investment as an unconditional good. As recently as late 2025, he described Texas as the "epicenter of AI development." In June, he sent a formal letter to the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT directing both agencies to immediately shield residential ratepayers from data center infrastructure costs. By July 1, at a campaign event in Bull