How President Trump's influence has changed Texas politics
The Fink Factor is a new longform video series from CBS News Texas political reporter Jack Fink, taking a closer look at politics in Texas. You can see more of Jack on our YouTube channel.
Over the past decade, President Donald Trump has had an undeniable impact on politics in the U.S. Apart from Washington, DC, perhaps nowhere has his impact changed more than Texas.
Four seminal moments in Texas politics prove how the soul of the state's Republican party has transformed from Bush to Trump.
2018 Senate election: Cruz vs. Beto
In the three decades since the last time a Democrat won statewide office in Texas, no one came closer than Beto O'Rourke in the race for U.S. Senate in 2018. The El Paso Democrat came within 2.6 percentage points of unseating incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. Nobody saw it coming.
The near-upset was largely due to how Mr. Trump, then in his first term, energized Democrats. O'Rourke won the major urban Democratic strongholds, but also took traditionally Republican Tarrant County.
That raised a lot of eyebrows among Republicans as well. Of course, it still wasn't enough because the Democrats did not have the campaign infrastructure to close the margins in rural areas of the state. But it definitely changed the way Democrats think about campaigning in Texas.
2024 presidential election: Changing the map
In Mr. Trump's third run for the White House, he won 14 of the 18 traditionally Democratic Texas counties within about 20 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. That included Starr County, which had not gone for a Republican for president since 1896.
The counties in the border region are heavily Hispanic and largely supported Democrats in recent decades. But Latinos as a whole are not ideologically driven, they are more independent. Pocketbook issues really resonate among Latino voters. Back in 2022, during the Biden administration, as the U.S. was coming out of Covid, there was a massive spike in inflation.
While inflation went back down, prices remained high. In 2024, voters remembered the economy during Mr. Trump's first term and decided to give him a shot for a second term.
In the past two years, inflation has remained high. This November, election results in the border counties will give the first indications on whether Mr. Trump's 2024 coalition in Texas can last.
Texas private school voucher debate: Abbot's power play
President Trump was not a main player in private school vouchers passing the Texas Legislature in 2025, but he still had a hand in the outcome.
School vouchers, also known as school choice, had been a priority of Republican leaders in Texas for many years, but rural Republicans in the state House of Representatives stood in the way.
In the 2024 primary elections, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took a page out of Mr. Trump's playbook by challenging Republican incumbent lawmakers who had voted against the school voucher bill in 2023. Abbott knew that if he wanted a change in the outcome, he would have to change the Republican candidates, most of whom occupy safe seats in the Legislature.
Abbott used $6 million from an out-of-state Republican, who was a big champion of school choice, to campaign for primary challengers to anti-voucher incumbents. He won enough of those battles that the law passed in 2025. And it turned out to be one of the top stories of that year.
2026 Republican primary for U.S. Senate: Paxton vs. Cornyn
When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton entered the Republican primary for U.S. Senate back in April of 2025, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn was tying himself very closely to Mr. Trump. Cornyn touted his record of 99% agreement with Mr. Trump on votes in the Senate, and claimed it was even higher than that of Ted Cruz.
Cornyn won a plurality in the three-way primary, but got trounced in the runoff after Mr. Trump gave his last-minute endorsement to Paxton.
Despite Paxton's extensive political baggage, Republican primary voters said they wanted a fighter to represent them.
The Bush-era Republican party in Texas is gone, with Cornyn's defeat a knockout blow. The Republican Party is Mr. Trump's party across the country, and certainly in Texas.
