Gov. Greg Abbott is running for a fourth term as Texas governor. The Republican announced his decision Sunday at a golf course in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the place where I first ran for public office,\u201d Abbot said, referencing his judicial election for the 129th District Court in the early 90s. \u201cWe won Harris County then, and we are going to win Harris County again this election.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three-term governor of the Lone Star State is entering his reelection campaign with a reported $87 million <\/a>in cash on hand. The governor has led the state during a period when the The Republican Party of Texas has moved ideologically farther to the right<\/a>. Abbott has also been a consistent supporter of and ally to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n During his announcement Sunday, Abbott touted Texas\u2019 friendly environment for business, his response to this July\u2019s history flooding<\/a> and the state\u2019s economic growth.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, under my leadership, the Texas gross domestic product has increased to $2.7 trillion a year,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cMaking Texas now the eighth largest economy in the entire world.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking to the future, much of Abbott\u2019s speech Sunday focused on lowering property taxes for homeowners.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to turn the tables on local taxing authorities and put the power with the people,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n Abbott currently has two Republican challengers who he will face in the party\u2019s primary in March 2026: Pete Chambers and Ronnie Tullos. As an incumbent with such a strong campaign war chest, it\u2019s expected Abbott will easily win \u2014 as he did four years ago<\/a> \u2014 and then move on to face the Democratic nominee<\/a> that November.<\/p>\n Greg Abbott\u2019s long history in Texas<\/b><\/p>\n Since taking office in 2015, Abbott has successfully pushed many conservative priorities in the state. Most recently, that list includes the state\u2019s controversial mid-decade congressional redistricting plan<\/a> and the signing of a $1 billion school voucher bill<\/a> into law in May. In previous legislative sessions, Abbott\u2019s emergency<\/a> items<\/a> have included cutting property taxes, changing the bail system, and a host of election and immigration measures.<\/p>\n During his nearly 11 years in office, Abbott has also overseen the state\u2019s responses to multiple natural disasters, including Hurricane Harvey and Winter Storm Uri, along with implementing a controversial state-led border security initiative<\/a> called Operation Lone Star.<\/p>\n Prior to being elected the 48th governor of Texas, Abbott was a member of the Supreme Court of Texas and the state\u2019s longest-serving attorney general.<\/p>\n Abbott attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated from law school at Vanderbilt University in 1984. Shortly afterwards, he became paralyzed after a falling tree pinned him while he was jogging. Abbott eventually sued the homeowner<\/a> and the tree-trimming company, winning a six-figure annual payout for life.<\/p>\n He continued working in the courtroom practicing law in Houston, where he won his first election in 1993 to become a state trial judge. Three years later, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Texas by then-governor George W. Bush. He resigned from the position in 2001 to return to private law practice. Abbott then became the Attorney General of Texas in late 2002, a position he held until shortly before being sworn in as governor <\/a>in 2015.<\/p>\n If Abbott successfully wins in 2026 and fully serves out a fourth term, the Republican would become Texas\u2019 longest-serving governor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will finish what we started. We will lead Texas into its glorious future,\u201d said Abbott. \u201cAnd that’s why tonight, I’m here to announce, I am running for reelection as your governor for the great state of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Greg Abbott is running for a fourth term as Texas governor. The Republican announced his decision Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":368657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[177951,5026,4345,358,171157,177952,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-368656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-governor-of-texas","9":"tag-greg-abbott","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-election","13":"tag-texas-governor","14":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115524116412911268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}