Two years after helping oust Republican state lawmakers who initially thwarted his bid to create a school voucher program in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is himself on voters’ ballots, asking for a fourth term. But on the campaign trail, he’s not centering the Republican education victories he’s secured in office.
And as Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa heads into Nov. 3 as perhaps Abbott’s toughest challenger yet, she’s using his education record — including the growing number of school districts taken over by the state — to put him on the defensive.
It’s hard to say whether focusing on education will help Hinojosa. Voters this year are more motivated by the rising cost of living, the economy and corruption, according to a University of Texas poll conducted earlier this month. But given how tight the race is — and that voters in the same poll are equally split on which candidate will be better on public education — experts say Hinojosa is leaning into her area of expertise, which gives her credibility.
Abbott and other Republicans’ choice to focus on other issues could help beat back Democratic challengers in the litany of close races.
Abbott has said he will crack down on teacher misconduct, limit devices in the classroom and trim administrative spending in schools. This week, he announced investments in teacher recruitment that were included in last year’s school finance bill. But in the final weeks of his campaign, he has centered on slashing property taxes, securing the border and protecting Texas’ conservative identity, rather than education.
“In Texas, crime is down, communities are safe, the border’s more secure, and I have an opponent who’s against those safe community policies,” Abbott said in a CBS Texas interview. “And we’re working on the education side also. Our students are doing better in schools than ever before, and we’ve provided record funding for high-skilled job training.”
Meanwhile, Hinojosa has built her campaign’s momentum around “saving public schools,” leaning into opposition to state takeovers of districts, an academic intervention tool that has disgruntled urban communities. She’s vowed to fire Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who oversees those takeovers, on her first day in office.
“We know that Greg Abbott has taken over Fort Worth ISD (and) Beaumont ISD,” Hinojosa said at a press conference in Houston last month. “This is a model that threatens our public school kids across this state. When I am governor, my plan will be to secure the American dream, and we start by saving Texas schools.”
Vouchers
Republicans haven’t leaned into school vouchers, which was a signature win among GOP leaders that defined the last election cycle.
Abbott endorsed several challengers to incumbent Texas House members in the 2024 GOP primary, creating a contentious election environment to replace many voucher opponents with supporters and paved the way for passage of a $1 billion voucher program that launched this year.
Matthew Wilson, a researcher at Southern Methodist University, said that move could sway rural voters at the ballot box who didn’t want to direct taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school tuition.
“It certainly did create some resentment and animosity, and it’s part of a set of issues that has driven a wedge between urban and suburban Republicans versus rural Republicans,” Wilson said.
Still, Wilson said swaths of rural Texas voters are hardly likely to flip blue. The risk Republicans face is disaffected GOP voters not showing up to the ballot box at all.
After all, statewide Republican victories have long hinged on dominating in rural Texas. In 2022, Abbott secured 80% of the vote in rural counties — building a roughly 668,000-vote advantage over Democrat Beto O’Rourke that erased the governor’s deficit in urban areas, according to an analysis from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
The backlash over vouchers could shape down-ballot legislative races, where voters will choose the lawmakers who control the program’s future, said Leslie Finger, a political scientist at the University of North Texas. In the lead up to the election, Republican candidates’ messaging around the issue has been hushed, which may be because public schools are losing money or because it is just a wonky issue to explain.
“They are a little bit on the defensive now,” Finger said. “They recognize there are talking points against it. … If you have an issue that has some dimension on which it’s damaging, you don’t want to emphasize it.”
School takeovers
In urban areas, the state’s intervention to turnaround campuses struggling with low STAAR scores has ousted the elected school board and superintendent in seven school districts since 2023.
In Harris County, where Abbott has spent heavily in hopes of flipping the state’s most populous blue county red, the Texas Education Agency appointed controversial education reformer Mike Miles as superintendent of Houston ISD, the state’s largest school district.
A pair of districts — Fort Worth and Lake Worth — are now in the midst of aggressive intervention in Tarrant County, a key battleground where both Republicans and Democrats are racing to make gains this November.
“It’s huge to see the impact that the state takeover of Fort Worth ISD has had on voter engagement and voter turnout,” said Zach Leonard, the president of Fort Worth-based advocacy group Families Organized and Responding to Takeover.
Allison Campolo, the chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, said the state takeover of Fort Worth ISD has made parents in the county feel “disenfranchised and unheard.” She said the issue has become “super motivational” for voters.
“I had the exact words said to me: ‘I had no idea how many people were so upset about Fort Worth ISD,’” Campolo said. “Even though we know and we’re aware, still, our poll greeters are surprised by how many people are so upset about the state takeover.”
Tarrant County Republican Party chair Tim Davis did not respond to requests for comment.
Abbott’s campaign notes that it takes five consecutive years of failing state accountability grades for districts to trigger a law allowing the state to take them over.
“This is not a decision made after one or two failing years,” Abbott said. “In Houston ISD, state intervention led to a doubling of A and B-rated schools and a 90% reduction in D and F-rated schools. We brought transformative change that improved student outcomes in Houston, and we expect to see the same results in Fort Worth.”
After Hinojosa made a campaign promise to end school takeovers, education advocacy organizations and teachers’ unions in largely Democratic-led urban areas — such as Houston and Austin — are organizing parents, teachers and community members to vote for her. If she takes office, she may face an uphill battle to legally dismantle state takeovers without the support of the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Still, at the ballot box, education competes with long-standing top issues on voters’ minds, such as the economy and public safety, said Joel Leader, an assistant professor of practice in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Just one in five registered voters have a child in the school system. For those who are not directly affected by education policy, it is a less salient issue than the price of gas or groceries, said Joshua Blank, the director of research of the Texas Politics Project.
Blank said that given Republicans’ vulnerability this cycle, with an unpopular GOP president in the White House and consumer prices putting pressure on household budgets, how much public education will sway an already close election is an open question.
“It’s not one with an easy answer,” Blank said.
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