Two years ago, Beto O’Rourke was a little-known congressman from El Paso and Ted Cruz’s re-election was considered a foregone conclusion. Then everything changed.
Abby Livingston
Abby Livingston joined The Texas Tribune in 2014 as the publication's first Washington bureau chief, and departed August 2022. In this role, she covered members in the Texas congressional delegation and campaigns back in the home state. A seventh-generation Texan, Abby grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to the Tribune, Abby worked for NBC, CNN, National Journal and Roll Call. At the Tribune, she won the 2017 National Press Club Award for Washington regional reporting and the Society of Professional Journalists' 2018 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence. Abby is a contributing writer to the Almanac of American Politics and frequently appears on MSNBC, CNN and Sirius XM radio. She also had a role on an episode of "The Bold and The Beautiful." In keeping with the Trib’s great history of hiring softball stars, Abby is a three-time MVP (the most in game history) for The Bad News Babes, the women’s press softball team that takes on female members of Congress in the annual Congressional Women’s Softball breast cancer charity game.
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Texas Elections 2018
Ted Cruz defeats Beto O’Rourke in difficult re-election fight
The race between Cruz and O’Rourke emerged as one of the hottest in the country, with Democrats hopeful that O’Rourke could break the Texas GOP’s iron grip on statewide offices.
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Texas Elections 2018
Uncertainty hangs over Texas as voters head to the polls this Election Day
From the intense battle between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke to hard-fought, well-funded races lower on the ballot, what happens on Election Day could reset — or reaffirm — the trajectory of Texas politics.
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Texas Elections 2018
With U.S. House GOP majority in the balance, Culberson and Fletcher battle in West Houston
In a race that could determine control of the U.S. House, U.S. Rep. John Culberson and Democratic challenger Lizzie Fletcher spar over Hurricane Harvey response, health care and a freeway.
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Texas Elections 2018
For both parties, the race between U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions and Colin Allred is bigger than one seat
Sessions, a Dallas Republican, is one of the most powerful Texans in Congress, making the battle for the seat about more than just determining which party controls the U.S. House.
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Texas Elections 2018
Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke are fighting over America’s most conservative large county
Cruz and O’Rourke’s U.S. Senate race highlights how the GOP stronghold in North Texas is a statewide battleground between Republicans and Democrats.
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Texas Elections 2018
Why the candidates are arguing more about health care than Trump in Texas’ top races for Congress
With early voting underway, health care is enduring as a central issue in Texas’ most competitive contests for the U.S. House.
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Texas Elections 2018
Will Donald Trump’s Houston rally for Ted Cruz motivate Republicans — or Democrats?
Like everything else in 2018, political operatives and candidates argue over whether President Trump’s Houston rally will help or hurt local Republican candidates.
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Texas Elections 2018
It’s not just Beto O’Rourke. 8 other Texas Democrats outraised Republicans in GOP-held seats
In several parts of the state, Democrats are running their most well-financed congressional campaigns in years. Check out our snapshots of fundraising across all of Texas’ U.S. House districts.
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Politics
Ted Cruz leads Beto O’Rourke in new poll by nine points
The Quinnipiac University poll also took a snapshot of Texas’ gubernatorial race, showing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott with a prohibitive lead over his Democratic rival, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, 58 percent to 38 percent.
