Longtime Conservatives In Texas Consider The Unthinkable: Voting For A Democrat

Interesting 2026 elections, big tech, data centers, google, greg abbott, texas admin August 22, 2026 0 Comments

Longtime Conservatives In Texas Consider The Unthinkable: Voting For A Democrat

Rural Texas conservatives are fed up with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over his failure to address concerns surrounding data centers, power lines, pollution, and strain on the electrical grid and water supplies.

Shawn Nanny, a Republican county commissioner in West Texas, told Politico that the state’s proposed data centers and plans to install thousands of miles of new, extra-high-voltage power lines were the “straws that broke the camel’s back.” (RELATED: Abbott’s Texas Tech Boom Is Built On Broken Promises)

“What I’m hearing is, ‘Yeah, we’ll have a Democrat in there and grit our teeth and bear it, but hopefully we’ll come out of it the following election,’” Nanny said. “They’re so upset; they just want [Abbott] out.”

Abbott proposed legislation in June that would, among other things, mandate that data centers pay for their own power costs and make their water-cooling processes more efficient. In August, he also paused new data center approvals until state electricity regulators audit other projects to assess the strain they will place on the grid.

These are attempts to make peace with rural anti-data center Texans after he welcomed tech companies, including Google, into the Lone Star State in 2025. He even referred to Texas as the “epicenter” of the massive AI buildout. But they might not be enough to persuade those citizens who feel the government is taking advantage of them and does not care about their culture and way of life — only their resources and land.

“We are not a bunch of woke Marxist liberals here, but I’m telling you our constituents oppose this and may become single-issue voters over this,” Greg Torres, McCulloch County attorney and a Republican in Central Texas, told Politico about the power line plans.

Other rural voters believe that Abbott’s pause was a political ruse, with Nanny telling Politico that his neighbors believe it is “all smoke and mirrors.”

“Personally, I think it’s just covering his butt,” Mary Jo Bloomquist, a Republican who lives in Hood County, told the outlet. “It makes him look like he’s doing something, but he’s really not.” (RELATED: How Politicians Changed Their Tune On Data Centers)

They get the sense that Abbott cannot balance the conflicting interests between big businesses, which want to develop rural, sparsely populated areas, and ranchers and farmers who have worked and lived off the land for generations.

Suzanne Bellsnyder previously worked for Abbott as a campaign field director in 2014. She now runs the Texas Rural Reporter, a website. She told Politico, Abbott’s attempt to lure in big business and tech companies is an “attack” on her culture.

“It feels like an attack on a culture, a way of life, because now I think rural Texas is feeling like, ‘Okay, now they want us, but don’t want our culture — they want our resources,’” she said.

Abbott’s campaign maintains the governor is invested in protecting rural communities in property rights, with a campaign spokesperson telling the outlet, “Rural Texas is the lifeblood of our great state, and Governor Abbott has always believed that economic growth cannot come at the expense of rural communities.”

But polls suggest the backlash will continue to dog the incumbent governor, who is facing off against Democratic challenger state Rep. Gina Hinojosa in November.

In general, a majority of rural Americans oppose data centers, according to a Politico poll. Abbott’s support among rural Texans has also dropped significantly since 2018. Between 2018 and 2026, this support decreased from 63% to 48%, according to a poll from the Texas Politics Project.

Although it has been three-and-a-half decades since Texas elected a Democratic governor, two polls from and Fox News found that Abbott only has a 1-point lead over Hinojosa. On Thursday, Cook Political Report moved the race from leaning in Abbott’s favor to shifting toward Hinojosa, pointing to the governor’s “recent shift on data centers” that proves he is “not immune to the political environment.”

Hinojosa made data centers a key campaign priority and called on Abbott to follow New York state’s lead by mandating a data center moratorium.

“Greg Abbott is the sole person who can fix the mess he made,” her website says. “He should issue an Executive Order effective immediately putting a moratorium on new data centers and then he should call a special session today to end the giant tax giveaways he signed into law and protect Texans.”

She recently released a 30-second ad targeting rural counties and attacking Abbott for his previous support for data centers.