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We had a Railroad Commission candidate make national news after his disparaging comments on a group of University of Texas students. We have a heated governor’s race that pitted a long-tenured governor against a former school teacher. And of course, we have Attorney General Ken Paxton and state Rep. James Talarico running for senate, a race that could define the political direction of Texas.
In the days leading up to Early Voting, polls across Texas voters flooded the polls casting their ballots in an election that garnered national attention. Many focused on issues like abortion, immigration enforcement and LGBTQ+ equality, all topics heavily discussed by candidates.
Ahead of election day, the Texas Tribune spoke with voters across the state to get a pulse on what issues mattered the most to them as they cast their ballots.
In Odessa, abortion access still motivates voters
ODESSA — In Odessa, an oil-and-gas town in the west, voters who spoke to The Texas Tribune were divided on their choices. Many grappled with economic hardship — they’re paying more for gas and groceries — but asking them to give up their deeply held conservative beliefs is a bridge too far.
Eugenio and Margarita Bersosa, who moved to Odessa from Mexico in 1974, said upholding anti-abortion laws, support for Israel and policies relating to transgender people outweigh rising expenses. They voted for a full Republican ticket.
“Too many support abortion and sex changes for young people,” Margarita, 75, said about Democrats, adding it’s an insult to their religious beliefs.
Eugenio, 77, agreed.
“We’re religious people, and we don’t coexist with those values,” he said.
Sandra Ward, 83, begrudgingly voted for the Republican slate. She doesn’t like some things about Paxton, such as allegations of infidelity, but they make him human, she said. And while she thinks Abbott could have done a better job with keeping data center development at bay, she said their values — which drive her vote — align with hers.
“I thought Texas needed to stay Republican as long as we can,” she said. “There are (Republicans) I don’t like, but their values are more my values as a Christian.”
Voters in Odessa also said the economy, reproductive healthcare and immigration enforcement mattered more.
Kathleen Hamilton, a 54-year-old county employee and U.S. Navy veteran, did not disclose her vote but said she voted for both Democrats and Republicans. She said Republicans have not done a good job of maintaining a healthy economy and have severely limited reproductive healthcare access for women, issues she cares about the most.
“I am not happy that (abortion) was taken away from women in Texas,” she said.
Rudy Ortiz, a 66-year-old maintenance supervisor, said he’s not happy with the current leaders and how they handle federal immigration enforcement and rising prices. While he agrees that federal immigration agents should detain and remove criminals, he said they’re not giving people without criminal records due process. He said he’d vote for the Democratic candidates.
Ortiz also said he thinks Paxton and Abbott have been in office too long, and he would rather take his chances with new candidates.
“I know I’m just a small voice in a big ocean,” he said of his vote. “But hopefully it’ll make a change.”
In the South Plains, Republican voters focused on religion at the polls; Dems on inequality
LUBBOCK — Kamren Ashmore, a 25-year-old Lubbock resident, voted for the first time this year. Ashmore said that after a rough few years in his life, he turned his life around and became a Christian.
However, he rejects the idea that the Republican Party has a monopoly on Christian values.
“There’s a lot that’s very contrary to me,” Ashmore said. “I don’t think (Republicans) represent my personal religious beliefs very well.”
Then he started paying attention to James Talarico. When Talarico visited Lubbock early in his campaign, Ashmore listened to his plans and met him afterward.
“He’s a different kind of Christian, and I would say he seems to represent some of those values a little more,” Ashmore said.
Ashmore, who works at a food distribution company in Lubbock, voted Democrat down his entire ballot on the first day of early voting. Aside from religion, there are several issues that made Ashmore vote for Democrats. This includes the economy, taxes, and what he called Republicans’ intolerance.
Across town, Tom Tenner and his wife made it a point to vote early like they do every election. This year, however, they were anxious to get to the polls and vote.
Over the years, the semi-retired scientist has been concerned about President Donald Trump’s attacks on science. When he took office the second time, the Trump administration began cutting billions of dollars in grants dedicated to scientific research. Earlier this month, a study revealed the National Institutes of Health awarded 7,400 fewer grants in 2026 than it did in 2024.
He sees Trump as corrupt and dislikes how most Republicans refuse to stand up to him. In Texas, he said Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have made things worse for average Texans.
“They’ve been in power for a long time, and I don’t think anyone has benefited from it at all,” Tenner said. “I certainly haven’t. I guess the top tier has, and the bottom tier just gets worse.”
Tenner is 77 years old. He lived through the Civil Rights movement and said people were once treated with dignity, and society fixed it if they weren’t. It’s probably too late for him to see another Golden Age of America, he said. However, he voted for Talarico, Hinojosa and other Democrats on the ticket out of hopes future generations might.
“Maybe my grandkids will, but not if we keep voting in people who are trying to scare us,” Tenner said. “I’m not saying Democrats would fix everything, I know they won’t. But I know they won’t goose-step behind Trump and ratify everything he wants to do.”
It was a cold, windy Saturday when Carol Lauer, a Lubbock resident, went out to vote. That didn’t bother her, though, as she happily went inside and voted Republican down her ticket.
Lauer, 71, is mostly happy with Trump’s second term in office and wants things to stay how they are. She wants the border to stay closed, and said she doesn’t want Muslims instilling their culture and traditions in America.
“I don’t want the Islamic people taking over our country with their mosques and their ideology in our schools and our traditions,” Lauer said. “I’m a proud American, and I want it to stay American.”
Lauer is a lifelong Republican and said people are blaming Trump for high grocery and gas prices, but says they were higher when President Joe Biden was in office. Reports show that both gas and grocery prices are higher now than they were under Biden.
“It’s not him,” Lauer said. “It’s the economy, and you can’t fix it overnight. Everybody wants it to be cheaper, but you have to realize where we were in the Biden Administration.”
Lauer was concerned for Trump’s safety ahead of his visit to Lubbock last week. She pointed to the protests and riots in Paris as a reason why, and said she sees Muslim flags being flown. Trump has made unsubstantiated claims recently that the unrest is caused by Muslim migrants.
While she said she would not go to the rally, she would pray for his safety.
Harris County sets early voting records
HOUSTON — Chris West went to the Tracy Gee Community Center in Houston when early voting began to do something he had never done before — vote for Republicans down the ballot.
“I was a Democrat forever, but these social issues are concerning,” he said. “The pronouns, I don’t want that kind of stuff in schools, and I don’t like some of these LGBTQ issues.”
West described himself as a college liberal, but since he has reached his 40s, his opinion on the Democratic Party has changed due to concepts like socialism being discussed by some.
“I got older and more concerned about kids and some of the weird things they are saying, and it’s all coming from the left. It wasn’t like that 20 years ago. I identify myself as right of center, but no, I don’t have a choice anymore,” he said.
West said Texas has always been a bastion for Republicans and for many years he had hoped to be a part of changing that, but he no longer wishes for that future.
“I matured. I prefer Texas stays red because they seem more reasonable,” he said. “We have had all these Californians move in here over the years, and I am just hoping they don’t bring their politics with them.”
Meanwhile, Henry Barring, 32, who also lives near the Tracy Gee Community Center, said he voted Democrat this election because he is hoping for change.
“This is a really important election. We got good candidates on the board like Talarico and Hinojosa,” he said.
Barring said he believes this is the Democratic Party’s best chance to flip the state and that he wants to be part of it, but he also expects there may be disappointment.
“I am cautiously optimistic, opposed to reckless optimism,” he said.
Kevin Giraldo, 35, looked excitedly toward a Democratic future, seeing large numbers of people at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center voting booth on the first day of early voting.
“I am hoping to see change. I am tired of the hate,” he said. “I want Texas to be home again.”
Rome Street, a woman in her 30s, said the long lines were a mix of good and bad: they show people are interested, but some people left because it took too long to get in.
“The midterms are very important. Who you vote for now matters now and later,” she said. “It’s important to show our children that voting matters and to not let apathy take over. We have seen some of that apathy set in, and that is my concern with people leaving.”
Sherry Browning, a woman in her 70s who has helped organize a group known as the “political cheerleaders,” an organization that encourages those who are voting with music and cheers, said she is just happy people are using their right to vote, with Harris County setting early-voting records.
“I never miss early voting,” she said. “I commend everybody who comes on the first day because you never know how it will turn out and you might vote again.”
Browning said she wanted to keep her hopes for the election to herself, but stressed that she uses her organization to teach the younger generation about history, especially Black history and the importance of voting.
“All history is good history; whether there are some sad parts in there, it’s still good history,” she said.
In the Valley, immigration is top of mind for many voters
McALLEN — The Lark Community Center in McAllen is traditionally the busiest election site in Hidalgo County. The county is split up into three of the most hotly-contested congressional races in the state.
The biggest chunk belongs to Texas’ 15th Congressional District, a seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from Edinburg. She’s running for a third term in office but is facing a fierce challenge from Tejano music artist Bobby Pulido, the Democrat in the race whose star power could boost his efforts to flip the seat.
Within the first hour of early voting, the line at the community center stretched out the door.
A Republican voter from McAllen, who only identified himself as K. Jaime, was among the voters who cast their ballot on the first day the polls were open.
Jaime, 65, works in the packaging industry. Voting was important for the “survival of America,” he said.
He worried about the choices that uneducated voters would make in the election and believed that the Democratic Party had gone off the deep end.
“That’s not the American way,” he said.
Fernando Rodriguez, 76, has lived in the country for 33 years and has been a U.S. citizen for 23 of those. He voted for Democrats up and down the ballot. The economy, war, labor shortages — all of that, he said, has gotten worse under Trump.
The biggest problem, in his view, is that deportation efforts by immigration officials have gotten too severe.
“I had never seen them remove people from their homes, shoot them, run over them, beat them,” Rodriguez said in Spanish before he broke down in tears.
“All of that is horrible,” he said. “They need to be stopped.”
In Lufkin, Talarico was a major voting issue for both parties
LUFKIN — About 30% of Angelina County’s registered voters had cast their ballots as of Friday morning, the last day to vote early in person, according to Terri Jordan, the county’s elections administrator. She worries about whether she ordered enough ballots to see the county through this election, especially as residents aren’t usually as fired up for the gubernatorial election cycle as they are for the presidential election.
Every day of early voting had shown a steady stream of voters, even on Sunday, when the polls are usually slow, she said. Her team will be working hard to make sure they’re ready for Election Day.
“They’re predicting an influx of voters and asked if I got enough ballots. I hope so, I ordered 20,000 more,” she said.
Elizabeth Cherry sees voting as one of the most important things she can do to keep the country on the right track. The lifelong East Texas Republican wants to see the work to deport unauthorized migrants continue and stricter law enforcement. And she doesn’t believe Democrats will do that.
“I’m afraid of open borders, and I’m afraid of not getting people out of here that are illegal and hurting other people,” Cherry said. “That’s my concern.”
Mark Reeves, a lifelong Democrat, voted by mail to avoid the long lines at Lufkin’s polling locations. He still wound up at one of the city’s polling locations at the Parks and Recreation Center on Friday morning for his regular pickleball game.
Reeves believes it’s time for Texas to change leadership. Republicans have led for far too long, and the state needs younger voices in charge, he said.
“Talarico — he’s a good voice,” Reeves said. “He has an uphill battle, but I think that’s what we need.”
Scott Graham, a lifelong Republican, strongly disagreed. He went to the polls specifically to make sure James Talarico did not win the election. The young, Democratic candidate is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he said.
“He’s really anti-biblical, and that’s really the foundation that you should choose a candidate on,” Graham said. “And if you look at him, look closely at him, he tries to be like one of us, and he’s not.”
Graham sees the liberal ticket as one that will lead the U.S. down the same path as Cuba, a socialist country, which he called “a mess”. While he hasn’t followed any of the other elections as closely, he voted a straight Republican ticket. He described the Democrats as going “down the wrong path.”
Kristie Benoit thinks Texas needs to move toward a more moderate line. She said swinging too far “blue” or too far “red” is a mistake, but aiming toward “purple” will set the state up for success.
“The two-party system is broken, so it should be somewhere in the middle,” Benoit said. “There are some things that the Republicans do have a good concept of, but then there’s other things that they’re totally out-of-pocket on. Same thing with the Dems.”
This was the first non-presidential election she has voted in since she was in her early 20s. Now, in her 40s, she brought her 21-year-old daughter to the polls with her to support Talarico. For a long time, she believed her single vote meant nothing. This year, however, she asked herself what would happen if everyone with her mindset decided to cast a ballot — then it would be more than just one vote.
“Purple sounds great as long as everybody is safe, happy, fed, has clean water, clean air, clean food,” she said. “Like that’s really what it should boil down to.”
