Texas elected Democrats to its top offices for the first time in decades, a move that could ripple through the burgeoning data center industry across the state.
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Gina Hinojosa was named the projected winner for Texas governor, and James Talarico was named the projected winner for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night by The Associated Press.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the 12-year Republican incumbent, said he called Hinojosa to concede at about 10 p.m. CT Tuesday.
Hinojosa had more than 4.4 million votes, or 53%, with 80% of Texas counties reporting late Tuesday, compared to about 3.8 million votes for Abbott.
The 52-year-old Austin state representative overcame a 4-1 spending disparity and will become the first Latina governor of Texas.
The Texas Republican Party hadn’t lost a gubernatorial election since 1990.
For the Texas commercial real estate industry, all eyes will likely turn to Hinojosa’s plan for a data center development moratorium, as well as stricter regulations on water and power usage and an end to tax breaks for the industry. Texas has more data centers under development than any other state, and it rose in the ranks to the top data center market this year, surpassing Virginia.
Talarico has also called for tighter data center regulations and said their construction shouldn’t contribute to the state’s affordability crisis. While the Republican candidates had also called for the end of tax breaks and stricter regulations for data center development, their plans differed at the granular level.
Talarico’s defeat of the Republican Senate nominee, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, will make him the state’s first Democratic senator since 1988, before the 37-year-old Talarico was born.
Talarico had 4.7 million votes, or about 55%, to Paxton’s 3.7 million late Tuesday night. Paxton, who defeated incumbent John Cornyn in the primary election, faced controversies like his 2023 impeachment and high-profile members of his party refusing to back him.
More than a third of the impeachment articles involved Paxton’s relationship with embattled Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. Paxton also has a significant real estate portfolio that is at issue in his ongoing divorce.
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