Record, data, and documented actions - sourced for door-knocking & conversations
Everything below is drawn from news reporting, court records, and state documents - not campaign rhetoric. Sources are noted after each item so you (or anyone you're talking to) can verify it yourself. Where there's a legitimate other side to a story, it's included.
GREG ABBOTT - Governor since 2015, seeking a 4th term
Operation Lone Star - what the money actually did
Texas has spent roughly $11 billion of state funds on Operation Lone Star since it launched in March 2021 - deploying state troopers and National Guard soldiers to the border, in addition to whatever the federal government does.
What that bought: over 538,000 migrant apprehensions, roughly 60,000+ criminal arrests (about 45,000–51,000 felony charges), hundreds of millions of fentanyl doses seized, and about 34 miles of a planned 1,254-mile state border wall (at that pace, full completion was projected to take another ~30 years and cost roughly $20 billion more).
Independent reporting (Texas Tribune, ACLU of Texas) found roughly a third of arrests happened in counties nowhere near the border, that the majority of people processed under OLS faced misdemeanor trespassing charges rather than smuggling or drug offenses, and that Guard members themselves have described the mission in leaked surveys as poorly organized.
Texas is now asking the federal government to reimburse the state for the cost - that reimbursement has not yet arrived as of mid-2026.
Fair counterpoint: Abbott's office credits OLS with an 85% drop in illegal crossings in the areas it targeted, and it's genuinely difficult for any outside analyst to cleanly separate that from other factors (Mexican enforcement changes, federal policy shifts under different administrations).
Sources: Texas Tribune, Houston Public Media, Wikipedia (Operation Lone Star), Spectrum News, ACLU of Texas report (May 2024)
Preempting local worker protections - the "Death Star" law
In 2023 Abbott signed House Bill 2127, which blocks cities and counties from having local ordinances stricter than state law in eight broad areas, including labor. Critics nicknamed it the "Death Star" bill.
The most-cited casualty: Austin's and Dallas's ordinances requiring a 10-minute water break every 4 hours for outdoor construction workers, in place since 2010 and 2015 respectively. Texas leads the nation in construction-worker heat deaths.
A Travis County judge ruled the law unconstitutional in 2023, but an appeals court reversed that ruling in July 2025 - so the law remains in effect today, and local water-break rules cannot currently be enforced.
Fair counterpoint: Supporters (business groups, some legislators) argue a single statewide standard is easier for employers - especially small businesses - to comply with than a patchwork of city ordinances, and that federal OSHA rules still technically require a "general duty" to prevent heat illness even without the specific local rule.
Abbott campaigned for governor in 2014 on building highway capacity "without new toll roads," and in 2017 personally pressured TxDOT to strip planned toll lanes out of its long-range transportation plan.
That pledge applied specifically to state-built TxDOT projects. It did not - and does not - stop toll roads built by regional mobility authorities and legacy toll agencies (like the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, active in the Austin–San Marcos corridor), which have continued building and expanding tolled lanes throughout Abbott's tenure.
For San Marcos-area drivers specifically: toll roads and tolled express lanes in the I-35 corridor have expanded in this period even though the "no new state tolls" pledge held for TxDOT's own projects.
Sources: KXAN, Reason Foundation policy analysis
School vouchers (Texas Education Freedom Accounts / SB2)
Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 in May 2025, creating Texas's first statewide school voucher program - $1 billion for the 2026–27 biennium, with money available starting fall 2026.
Eligible families get roughly $10,000–$10,900/year per child for private school costs (homeschool families get about $2,000; students with disabilities can get up to $30,000).
More than 274,000 students applied for a program capped to serve an estimated 80,000–100,000 in year one; awards were distributed by lottery, prioritized toward lower-income families and students with disabilities first.
Fair counterpoint: Supporters argue it gives lower-income families options they couldn't otherwise afford and point to disability/low-income priority tiers. Critics (including public-school advocacy groups) note that in other states, a large share of voucher recipients were already enrolled in private school before the program existed, meaning the money often subsidizes families who didn't need to switch - money that would otherwise go to public schools.
Sources: Texas Tribune, Raise Your Hand Texas, Texas Education Agency
Data centers & water - the San Marcos angle
SAN MARCOS RELEVANT
This one is a local fight, not something Abbott did directly - but it connects to a statewide pattern. In February 2026, San Marcos City Council voted 5–2 to reject a $1.5 billion, ~200-acre data center proposal near Francis Harris Lane after a nine-hour public hearing, with water use as the central concern (the facility's water draw was disputed, with figures ranging from 75,000 gallons/day up to 25+ million gallons/year depending on cooling design).
Nearly 400 AI data centers already operate in Texas with dozens more proposed in Central Texas, straining the same aquifers San Marcos depends on. Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra separately proposed (unsuccessfully, over Commissioner objections) a moratorium on water-intensive building permits countywide.
State-level response has been limited so far: Texas regulators have only recently begun requiring data centers to report water usage - there's no statewide cap or moratorium, which is why these fights keep happening city by city and county by county.
Sources: KVUE, KUT, KXAN, CBS Austin - February 2026
KEN PAXTON - Attorney General since 2015, running for U.S. Senate (not re-election as AG)
Taxpayers footing the bill for his legal troubles
Four senior aides accused Paxton of bribery and abuse of office in 2020 after reporting him to the FBI; he fired them, and they sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act.
Paxton agreed to a $3.3 million settlement in 2023 and asked the Legislature to pay it with state funds. That request - not the original whistleblower allegations - is what triggered the Texas House to impeach him (121–23) later that year. He was acquitted by the Senate.
The impeachment trial itself cost the state about $5.1 million in legal fees, per the State Auditor's Office.
Paxton later contested the case rather than accept the original settlement; in April 2025 a Travis County judge ordered his office to pay $6.6 million instead (nearly double the original settlement, plus accruing interest). He initially appealed, calling the ruling "ridiculous," then dropped the appeal in July 2025 - leaving the Legislature to fund the larger judgment with taxpayer money.
Total taxpayer cost tied to this one episode (settlement/judgment + impeachment defense) is roughly $12 million and climbing with interest.
Sources: Texas Tribune (multiple, 2023–2025), CBS Texas, Federal Lawyer/Oberheiden P.C. summary
Ten Commandments push, alongside a divorce over adultery
Paxton has been a lead defender of Senate Bill 10, the 2025 law requiring every Texas public school classroom to display a Ten Commandments poster, and has sued at least one school district (Galveston ISD) for refusing to post it.
In July 2025, his wife of 38 years, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce citing "biblical grounds" - she specifically cited adultery (the seventh commandment) as the reason, following earlier affair allegations that also surfaced during his 2023 impeachment trial.
This became a live campaign issue: in his U.S. Senate primary, opponent John Cornyn ran an ad juxtaposing the Ten Commandments against Paxton's alleged affair, an accusation of stealing a $1,000 pen, and allegations he misrepresented property ownership for lower mortgage rates.
Sources: The Hill, Christian Post, Baptist News Global, Reason, Mediaite/Yahoo News
Suing San Marcos over marijuana decriminalization
SAN MARCOS SPECIFIC
In 2022, San Marcos voters approved Proposition A with about 82% support, ending police citations/arrests for possession of 4 ounces or less of marijuana (with exceptions for felony-level investigations), also barring use of marijuana odor alone as probable cause to search.
Paxton sued San Marcos in early 2024 (along with Austin, Killeen, Elgin, and Denton - all cities that passed similar voter-approved measures), arguing state law requires cities to fully enforce drug laws and that home-rule cities can't opt out.
A Hays County district judge initially dismissed the suit against San Marcos in 2024. The state appealed, and in April 2025 the state's 15th Court of Appeals sided with Paxton, blocking San Marcos from enforcing its voter-approved ordinance while the case continues.
Net effect: an ordinance passed with 82% voter approval is currently unenforceable because Paxton's office sued to block it.
DAN PATRICK - Lieutenant Governor since 2015, running for re-election
The THC/hemp fight
Patrick made a full ban on consumable THC/hemp products (Senate Bill 3) his top priority for the 2025 legislative session, calling the products "poison in our communities" and citing Texas's roughly 8,000 unregulated THC retailers.
Both chambers passed it, but Abbott vetoed it at nearly the last possible moment, citing likely constitutional problems (the 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized hemp, and a similar ban in Arkansas had already been blocked in federal court on that basis).
Patrick publicly accused Abbott of wanting to "legalize recreational marijuana in Texas" - a notable public split between the state's two top Republicans, both up for re-election in 2026.
Abbott called a special session instead, aimed at regulating (age limits, testing, licensing) rather than banning the industry, which state estimates put at roughly $4.3–8 billion/year and 53,000 jobs.
Sources: Texas Tribune, CBS Texas, Houston Public Media, NBC 5 DFW, Texas Senate news