President Donald Trump and outgoing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are to blame for Republicans’ historic losses Tuesday night, according to several of their GOP colleagues.
Texans, and voters in several other states across the U.S., handed control of state governments and Congress to Democrats.
Trump placed the blame on Abbott in a post on Truth Social Tuesday night, saying he wasn’t far enough to the right.
“If Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his political life, he wouldn’t have lost,” Trump wrote, using the political label Republican in Name Only to insult Abbott. “He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty!”
One of Abbott’s accounts on X, @GovAbbott, was suspended after his election failure. The social media platform, owned by Elon Musk, has not publicly shared why his account was suspended. His official government account, @GregAbbott_Tx, was not suspended.
Don Huffines, who will hand over the state comptroller’s seat to Democrat Sarah Eckhardt, said Republican losses came from the party’s failure to deliver on economic promises during the decades in which it held statewide power.
“It’s gonna be almost impossible to win this state back,” Huffines told supporters, who applauded his list of people to blame in a concession speech Tuesday night. “I blame this on Greg Abbot. I blame it on Dan Patrick. I blame it on all the mushy middle people who want to think, ‘oh, we’re in the middle, we want to make everybody happy.’ Well, you sure did a good job with this mess.”
He said Republicans couldn’t run on promises of lowering prices on gas, grocery and rent because they have been the ones in power as prices across the state have skyrocketed.
“I hope you’re happy, ’cause now we’re all gonna suffer,” Huffines said. “I blame it all on our leadership, thinking you’re gonna go for four terms as governor, four terms as lieutenant governor. I mean, seriously?”
Others, like Dan Patrick, didn’t put the blame on a single individual and said the results reflected what Texans care about.
“This was a wave election in Texas and across the country,” he wrote in a statement to concede the race. “Whether it was about affordability, gas prices, data centers, 765-kV lines, or any other issue important to them, I respect how the people voted. It was a fair election, and I accept the majority will of the voters.”
Patrick said “the Republican party has serious work to do to begin taking out state back.” He said “democratic socialist policies will fail” and that Texas will be less safe, bankrupt and more expensive under Democratic leadership.
Many Democrats ran on platforms of lowering costs for things like groceries, gas and housing, a message that seemed to resonate with Texas voters.
John Huffman, a Republican and the former mayor of Southlake, said it was a painful night for Republicans. And while Democratic messaging on things like prices, the war in Iran and immigration enforcement operations may have swayed voters, Huffman said he thinks the results don’t show a shift in political alignment but a rebuke of Trump.
“Let’s be really clear: Last night was not a realignment of the state’s political values, but a judgment on a political party,” Huffman wrote in a statement Wednesday morning. “What happened was simple: Democrats, independents and some Republicans rejected Trump and concluded that we Republicans have not gotten the job done for them and their families.”
James Hartley is the Tarrant County producer and breaking news reporter for KERA News. Got a tip? Email James Hartley at jhartley@kera.org. You can follow James on X @ByJamesHartley.
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