Gov. Greg Abbott is running against Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic challenger, in the Texas gubernatorial election.
Abbott is the incumbent and he is running as a Republican in this election. According to recent polls reported on by the Deseret News, Abbott leads O’Rourke by an 11-percentage points margin.
According to the National Governors’ Association, Abbott was born in 1957 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University, where he earned a law degree. Before becoming governor, he was the longest-serving attorney general for the state of Texas.
Abbott has both fiscally and socially conservative positions. On his campaign website, Abbott said that he supports tax cuts. Previously, he supported changes to law that allowed “campus carry” and “open carry.” According to The Texas Tribune, Abbott signed a law that made abortion a felony and doesn’t support abortion except in a narrow exception for the life of the pregnant person.
Ballotpedia reported that Abbott has historically not supported same-sex marriage. More recently, according to Axios, Abbott supports “a measure that forces public school students to play on sports teams based on their assigned sex at birth.”
Abbott also wants to increase fencing along the Texas border. Additionally, he has stated that he supports the death penalty, calling it “Texas justice.”
The midterm Election Day is a week away.