Abbott Takes Credit for Big Bend Wall Pause
after 4 GOP Reps and 40 Dems Urge Action
Texas General Election Polls
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Capitol Inside
August 17, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott bowed to Democrats for the second time in 10 days before trying on Monday to take the credit for the federal government's abrupt pause on the erection of a border wall in Big Bend National Park in the face of ferocious opposition from local leaders on both sides of the aisle.
As the Trump administration dispatched Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott on a information-gathering mission to the remote swath of West Texas where the barrier is being built, Abbott said the decision to temporarily halt construction was inspired by a conversation that he had during the weekend with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
"There are other border areas in the state where the wall is needed more now than places like Big Bend," Abbott said when asked about the development. The governor suggested that the freeze on the wall's construction in Big Bend should make Texas even more secure from migrants entering the state illegally than the other way around because it would free up resources to spend on barriers in areas that are more vulnerable than the national park.
But Abbott's exchange with the Department of Homeland Security's boss came several days after 43 Texas House members fired a letter to the governor pleading for him to intervene in the furor after staying mum on the uproar that the wall's construction in Big Bend had sparked. The group of lawmakers who signed the communique included 40 Democratic representatives and three Republican colleagues.
State Reps. Drew Darby of San Angelo, Wes Virdell of Brady and Stan Lambert of Abilene were the Republicans who added their signatures to the letter to Abbott. The Texas House currently contains 88 GOP members and 62 Democrats. Another Republican - former Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont - had been pushing in individual social media posts for state leaders to break their silence on the furor.
When faced with strenuous opposition mostly from Democrats in the Texas Legislature and local officials on both sides of the aisle on the rapid proliferation of data centers across the state with the governor's encouragement, Abbott reversed course with a pause that he ordered on electrical and water hookups for those that are new.
The governor's belated intervention on the Big Bend border wall and the data center explosion here put him in the opposing corner from President Donald Trump on those two particular issues. While Abbott had done his best to avoid Trump's wrath during his second White House term, the top Texas leader apparently realized that the backlash on data centers and the border wall was putting the Republicans in competitive races on the fall ballot in greater peril before a general election that's just 78 days away.
With national conditions considerably worse for Republicans than they were before the midterm election in Trump's first term in 2018, Abbott's hold on the governor's job in a bid for a fourth term had never been at risk as much as it appears to be now based on polling during the summer. Abbott won by 20 points in first bid for the post in 2014 before beating a Democratic challenger by 13 points in 2018 when Democrats flipped 14 legislative districts and two congressional seats in Texas on the strength of an epic blue wave. The governor's winning margin dropped below 11 points in his third campaign for the position in 2022.
But Abbott has led current Democratic foe Gina Hinojosa by 3 points on average in the eight most recent polls on the race that were taken in July and August. The governor's race has been inside the margin of error in six of the surveys that were conducted on the contest during that span of time. Abbott's fate could depend substantially on state Attorney General Ken Paxton's performance at the top of the ticket in a U.S. Senate battle that Democrat James Talarico led in seven of the eight most recent polls.
Abbott's surfacing in the fights over the border wall and data centers with time in relatively short supply before the midterm vote is the latest sign that the Republicans here are running scared for the first time in two dozen years at least.
more to come ...
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