Tucker Carlson is warning that Texas Governor Greg Abbott could be in serious political trouble heading into the 2026 midterm elections, as Democrat Gina Hinojosa has narrowed the gap in the traditionally Republican state. The latest polling shows a close race, giving Hinojosa an opening as she seeks to unseat the three-term Republican governor. The contest comes as Abbott faces criticism over his shifting position on artificial intelligence data centers.
Abbott previously promoted Texas as an AI hub but has recently moved toward greater oversight of the industry. On August 3, he directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct a comprehensive audit of data centers seeking to connect to the state’s power grid, requiring the audit to be completed before projects could move forward. Abbott said projects that fail to meet state requirements will be denied connections, citing concerns about the strain data centers could place on Texas’ electricity grid.
Hinojosa has made the data-center controversy a part of her campaign, arguing that Abbott is reversing course to protect his reelection chances and because voters have grown increasingly concerned about the projects. In an email to Newsweek on Thursday, Texas Democratic Party spokesman Jacob Long accused Abbott of previously giving data centers generous tax breaks and promoting Texas as an “AI playground for billionaires,” before declaring that voters would send him into retirement and elect Hinojosa. The criticism comes as opposition to data centers has spread across party lines, with a recent Texas Politics Project poll finding only 30 percent supported having a data center in their community.
Newsweek reached out to Abbott's campaign via online form on Thursday for comment. In an episode of The Tucker Carlson Show released Wednesday, Carlson sat down with podcast host Saagar Enjeti. Enjeti said that Donald Trump has run numerous times now on rebuilding America but, as of late, has backed AI and data centers.
"How about a bill in Congress that Trump could call for, saying, 'You want your data centers, okay, but we're not gonna turn this into East Germany," Carlson said. "If we had abundant cheap power, none of this would really be as much of a conversation, but it is actually living in a world where the administration is coming to the back of these data center companies and is in many cases is attacking Republican governors who, again, in my opinion, are just trying to do some very sensible stuff," Enjeti later added. "Greg Abbott, who, let's not pretend he's doing this out of the goodness of his own heart, he dragged kicking and screaming to the data center moratorium." "He's about to lose that election," Carlson said.
"He very well may," Enjeti said. "But he signed the data center moratorium, and in it, all he says is, 'Look, we're doing a moratorium; we have to figure out rural land use and water, noise generation, we need to make sure that you don't get certain tax breaks. We just need to make things normal so that when the local community allows the data center to be built, that they reap some of the benefits.
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