(mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) partition of Texas into 12 regions Texas Democrats hoped for Beto O'Rourke to achieve an upset over the incumbent Greg Abbott, which did not materialize. Abbott won by 10.9%, down from 13.3% in 2018. Abbott's margin was slightly larger than aggregate polling, but virtually in line with the last poll conducted. He won the vast majority of counties (235 out of 254), mostly rural, and by significantly wide margins. In particular, 34 counties, mainly in
West Texas and the
Texas panhandle, gave Abbott over 90% of the vote. This was the most by any Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate, and the most for any candidate since Democrat
Allan Shivers'
1954 re-election. Abbott won the three largest metro areas in the state, which include
Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington in
North Texas,
Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land in
Southeast Texas, and
San Antonio–New Braunfels in
South-
Central Texas. He also won all of the state's mid-sized metro areas outside of the Rio Grande Valley, which include
Corpus Christi along the coastal bend;
Waco,
Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood, and
Bryan–College Station in
Central Texas;
Beaumont–Port Arthur,
Tyler and
Longview in
East Texas;
Lubbock,
Abilene, and
Midland-Odessa in
West Texas; and
Amarillo in the
Panhandle. Abbott also won an urban county,
Tarrant, home to
Fort Worth and did well in the suburban counties of the
Texas Triangle, winning
Brazoria,
Galveston, and
Montgomery counties around
Houston;
Comal and
Guadalupe around
San Antonio;
Collin,
Denton,
Ellis,
Kaufman, and
Rockwall in the
Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex; and
Williamson in
Greater Austin. In
DFW and Austin specifically, Republican strength had declined somewhat in these metros, with Abbott carrying Collin, Denton, Tarrant, and Williamson by 10.07%, 12.81%, 4.11%, and 0.62% respectively, down from his margins of 19.48%, 20.60%, 10.64%, and 10.71% from 2018. Excluding the largest metro areas, Abbott improved on his 2018 margins. O'Rourke, despite his loss, did best in most of Texas's urban centers. He carried
Travis, home to the state capital
Austin (72.6%-25.9%), his best performance in the state;
El Paso, his home county, 63.4%-35%;
Dallas (62.8%-35.9%);
Bexar, home to
San Antonio (57.5%-41.1%); and
Harris, home to
Houston (54%-44.5%). He also carried
Hays, a rapidly growing county south of Austin which contains
San Marcos and
Texas State University along with fast-growing cities of
Kyle, and
Buda by 54.5%-43.7%. Despite improving on 2018 nominee
Lupe Valdez's margins in these counties, he did worse in all of them compared to his Senate campaign in
2018, and, excluding Travis and Hays, worse than
Joe Biden in the
2020 presidential race. The only county O'Rourke flipped was suburban
Fort Bend outside Houston, which voted for Abbott by 0.2% in 2018, but voted for O'Rourke by 4.68% in this election. Outside the Texas Triangle and Trans Pecos, the only other area O'Rourke won was heavily Hispanic
South Texas along the U.S. border with Mexico. His performance was worse than Valdez's and his own from 2018, which continued the trend of rural Hispanic voters away from the Democrats towards Republicans, but he did outperform Biden from 2020. Counties that voted for Biden by single digits like
Duval (2.61%),
Starr (5%), and
Maverick (9.45%); voted for O'Rourke 11.02%, 17.85%, and 17.68% respectively. Despite this improvement from the 2020 presidential race, Abbott flipped two heavily Hispanic counties,
Zapata and
Culberson (in the Trans Pecos). Exit polls according to NBC News showed Abbott winning male (58%-41%) and female voters (51%-48%), whites (66%-33%), and other races (67%-31%), voters over 45 (60%-39%), college graduates (52%-47%) and non-college graduates (56%-43%), and voters who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election (94%-5%). O'Rourke won black voters (84%-15%), Latinos (57%-40%), Asians (52%-48%), voters between 18 and 44 (54%-44%), Independents (49%-47%) and moderates (60%-38%). Fox News Voter Analysis exit polls showed Abbott winning male (59%-39%) and female voters (51%-48%); whites (68%-30%) and other races and ethnicities (53%-42%); voters over 45 (61%-37%); college graduates (54%-44%), non-college graduates (56%-43%); white men (70%-28%); white women (67%-32%). O'Rourke won African Americans (81%-18%), Latinos (56%-42%); African American men (76%-24%); African American women (85%-13%) Latino men (55%-45%) and Latina women (61%-37%).
Voter demographics Voter demographic data was collected by
CNN. The voter survey is based on
exit polls. There were 4,327 total respondents. ==See also==