The Republican electorate of Texas, dissatisfied with the imposed restriction on the placement of data processing centers (data centers) in the state, may support Democrat Gina Hinojosa in the November gubernatorial elections, writes The Washington Post (WP). A Fox News poll shows her trailing her rival, incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, by just 1% in the race.
Texas is considered a traditionally Republican state. The last time Democrats won a gubernatorial election was 1990, when Ann Richards won. Her fellow party member from the Lone Star State was last elected to the US Senate in 1988, Lloyd Bentsen. However, in the current election cycle, the political landscape of Texas is undergoing unprecedented changes that could lead to Democratic victories, writes WP.
The changes are also noted by the nonpartisan aggregator The Cook Political Report. The publication changed its forecast for the gubernatorial elections from a “confident victory” for the Republicans to a “probable victory.” As James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told WP, “the unusually competitive election is causing Republicans to rethink their position.” However, “a Republican will have to try very hard to vote for a Democrat,” he added.
Hinojosa, 52, says on her campaign website that she favors eliminating public school vouchers, cutting spending on health care, groceries and utilities — and putting a moratorium on data center construction. At the same time, 68-year-old Abbott last November called the state “the epicenter of the development of artificial intelligence” and, together with Google, announced an investment of $40 billion in the construction of three data center campuses, recalls Axios. However, then his position changed.
“Texas is one of the most promising markets for data centers. Developers were initially drawn to the state's business-oriented nature, with abundant natural gas and renewable energy reserves, extensive energy infrastructure and vast land resources,” notes Axios.
In June of this year, Abbott instructed government regulators to require companies that build data centers to pay the full cost of the electricity they need and called for a phase-out of tax breaks. In addition, the governor ordered regulators to audit centers seeking to connect to the Texas power grid.
As Axios explains, Abbott's policy changes come as local opposition to data centers has begun to gain political strength. At the same time, companies building data centers have failed to gain the support of local communities and have faced their negative reaction.
“For Hinojosa to win, she needs to do three things: Get an overwhelming majority of Democratic votes, which she appears to be able to do. Second: gain the support of independent voters by a margin of two to one, which she seems to be succeeding in doing. And thirdly: get at least 10-15% of the Republican vote,” Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, emphasized in an interview with WP.
