President Donald Trump is weighing in on Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) loss this week that left many shocked.
Gov. Abbott has held the governor seat for 11 years, making this most recent run for re-election a bid for a fourth term. But after his loss to State Representative Gina Hinojosa (D-TX) this week, President Trump said he thinks he knows why the governor lost.
“If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty!”
“RINO” is a term that stands for “Republican in Name Only," meaning a Republican perceived as not sufficiently loyal to the party or its conservative principles.
Abbott, whom many projected to win, would have been the longest-serving governor in Texas history had he won. But by the morning after Election Day, polls showed Hinojosa led with about 53% of the vote.
Leading up to his campaign, Abbott had a few issues voters seemed concerned about, including whether he was too closely aligned with wealthy business interests. In August, Abbott froze new data-center approvals to allow state agencies to audit the electricity and water use and assess its impact on local power grids.
Trump was not supportive of this.
“I think it’s a mistake. And I’m not taking positions; I just think it’s a mistake, because there are other communities that want it,” Trump said. “When a community wants it, it means a lot of money is going to come into that community.”
But just before Election Day, reports showed that voter opposition to data centers was widespread, with 57% of Texas voters opposing construction in their communities.
Trump has also called Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) a “RINO” for his past disagreements with Trump and failure to consistently support the president's positions. Sen. Cornyn lost the Republican primary runoff to Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton (R-TX), who lost his general election bid to Democrat James Talarico (D-TX) by a substantial margin.
