Texans Elect Democrat Governor Who Vowed To Freeze Data Center Construction

Democrat Gina Hinojosa won the Texas governorship on Tuesday, unseating three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by seven points, CBS News projected. She is the first Democrat to take the office since Ann Richards in 1990, and her platform calls for an immediate pause on new data centers, plus an end to the state's tax breaks for them, until the legislature adopts safeguards, according to Daily Caller.

The result matters because Texas holds more than a quarter of the data center capacity planned nationwide through 2030, according to Yahoo Finance. Stuart Turley of Sandstone Group told the Daily Caller News Foundation he had advised landowners to hold off on sales to developers until after the midterms, and he warned that power costs could climb. Elon Musk wrote on X that putting data centers in space looked appealing, and Agence France-Presse reports AI stocks, SpaceX included, slipped before Wednesday's open.

Abbott had already frozen new approvals in August, ordering audits of every facility seeking a grid connection; more than 1,800 projects were queued. Hinojosa dismissed that as an election-year pause. Lawyers at K&L Gates argued a governor cannot directly halt connections, and analyst David Blackmon said a permanent ban would need legislative action.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Daily Caller’s reporting. Read the full story at Daily Caller →