Voters defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Election Day and elected Democrats Gina Hinojosa as governor and Nathan Johnson as attorney general. Hinojosa is the first Mexican American elected governor of Texas. Johnson is the first Democrat elected attorney general since 1994 and will succeed Ken Paxton, whose office defended the governor's immigration policies in federal court.
Over nearly 12 years, Abbott spent billions of dollars on state-led immigration enforcement, including deploying National Guard soldiers, arresting migrants and building border barriers. Abbott announced Operation Lone Star in March 2021. He said it was needed because the Biden administration was pursuing open-border policies. Both Hinojosa and Johnson have criticized Abbott's immigration approach. On the campaign trail, however, they did not commit to fully dismantling the framework built over the past decade.
Kristin Etter, director of policy and legal services at the Texas Immigration Law Council, said a new governor cannot rewrite immigration laws but can make different choices about how the state uses its resources. Business owners said before the election that arrests and deportations had left some construction companies short of workers. Democrats also regained support in border counties, particularly the Rio Grande Valley, that had shifted toward Trump two years earlier.