Texas Governor Voter Guide: Abbott, Hinojosa and Dixon on Data Centers and THC

Three candidates are on the ballot for governor of Texas on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, according to the Texas Secretary of State: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking a fourth term, Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin and Libertarian Pat Dixon of Lago Vista. Four declared write-in candidates — Edward Earl Giles, Jenn Mack, Jinghpaw Majoishingra and Mike Miller — are also listed by the state. Early voting runs through Oct. 30. The Digital Free Press voter guide, republished by Texas newspapers on Oct. 25 and built on The Texas Tribune's Sept. 25 candidate guide and Community Impact's written questionnaire, compares the three ballot candidates on the two issues at the center of this year's race: data centers and the rules for THC and hemp products.

Data centers, many of them built for artificial intelligence, are seeking power from the Texas grid at a record pace. On Aug. 3, the governor's office said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was considering more than 474 gigawatts of requests to connect to the grid — over five times the state's record peak demand — and that about 90% of those requests were data centers. In 2025, Abbott signed Senate Bill 6, which set new state rules for large power users such as data centers seeking to connect to the grid. Texas also offers data centers a sales tax exemption, which Hinojosa's campaign traces to House Bill 2712, signed in 2015.

On data centers, Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT on Aug. 3 to audit every data center in ERCOT's connection process and said, "The PUCT and ERCOT must complete this audit before any data center project moves forward." In a June 10 directive, he told regulators he expects data centers to lower residential electric bills, pay their own infrastructure costs, add power generation, use water-efficient cooling and reduce impacts on neighbors, and his office said on July 23 that he will seek legislation to repeal sales tax exemptions and other incentives for data centers. Hinojosa backs a pause backed by law: her website says, "We need an immediate moratorium on data centers to last until the legislature can meet to put in place real protections so Texans can have a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come into their communities," and in Community Impact's questionnaire she said she would freeze residential electricity rates until data centers pay for themselves. Dixon opposes tax incentive programs, including for data centers — he writes on his website that Texas should not be paying to bring AI data centers to Texas, calls the incentives "crony capitalism," and says a data center that pays for its own impact or provides its own resources is a different matter.

On THC, Texas legalized hemp in 2019 and a large market for hemp-derived THC products grew after that. In June 2025, Abbott vetoed Senate Bill 3, which would have banned most hemp-derived THC products. In 2026, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) adopted stricter hemp rules that count THCA toward the legal THC limit, which effectively bans most smokable hemp flower, The Texas Tribune and KUT reported; the Texas Hemp Business Council sued, a Travis County judge blocked the rules in May, and the Fifteenth Court of Appeals allowed them to take effect in June while the case continues. Separately, delta-8 and similar THC products became illegal on July 31 after DSHS reinstated its classification of them as Schedule I drugs. Abbott's Sept. 10, 2025 executive order directed state agencies to ban hemp sales to minors with ID checks, and to strengthen testing, labeling and licensing rules. Hinojosa would push for Texas voters to decide THC regulations and protections for children through a public vote, The Texas Tribune reported. Dixon applauds the Senate Bill 3 veto and says, in his campaign's words, "adults should be free to make their own choices, provided they don't harm others," while government punishes impaired driving and protects children.