Introducing Our November/December 2026 Issue

Texas Observer reader,

It’s that awkward edition of the magazine again when we send the issue out into the void of printing and shipping without knowing how, just a couple weeks later, nationwide elections will shake and shape the future and present alike. 

There’s almost nothing in this issue that November 3’s results won’t touch. In fact, the mere prospect of a backlash election already shifted the policy landscape. Though not a powerful orator or font of charisma, Governor Greg Abbott is a savvy politician who can read a poll: His 180-degree reversals on unfettered data center development and Flock surveillance cameras were indeed shameless, as his critics note. 

But the governor has a political weapon unique to his position. When he decides to flip-flop, he can immediately put an executive action behind his posture—making it much more difficult to accuse him of empty words. His Democratic challenger, by contrast, can only make promises and hope voters believe her, and even other statewide elected officials lack a comparable on-demand tool. 

His actions amount to saying: This ship may go down, but not with me on board.

If he fails to bail, and we get a Governor Gina Hinojosa, it will be a new dawn for politics and policy at the Texas Capitol, where the governmental decisions made are generally more important than what happens in D.C. or at the local level, where cities have seen their hands increasingly tied. Separately or together, a serious suite of Dem pickups in the state House could scare the GOP into a less destructive legislative session à la 2019. And if Bo French is defeated—well, you know what, to hell with that guy and let’s leave it at that.

That leaves of course the Senate race that’s taken up the bulk of the year’s oxygen. Should James Talarico prevail, but Republicans otherwise hold the line, the actual benefits for Texans would largely be deferred. One U.S. senator or a slim Senate majority, for that matter, can do little to halt the assault on our public schools, address the failure of our cities to modernize and adapt to climate change, or reform our backward system of taxation, to name a few matters of daily import. 

Rather, that first step would amount to the necessary but insufficient condition for the next. Hope is one thing, but belief is another. And, with the latter, actually seeing a thing helps one hell of a lot. Anyhoo, no use talking about it anymore—time to see what reality holds.

Solidarity, 

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