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| GOP Gov. Greg Abbott opens taco stand at Texas Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi June 26 |
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Texas GOP Governor Attempts Spotlight Heist
at Democratic Convention as Elephant Encore
Capitol Inside
June 26 2026
CORPUS CHRISTI - Governor Greg Abbott found a way to upstage U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton at the Texas GOP's state convention in Houston two weeks ago when he turned the event into a circus with a live elephant's appearance.
The Republican leader of the nation's largest red state appears to have traded the Barnum & Bailey theatrics for a strategy that's more multi-dimensional in an attempt to hijack the spotlight again at the Texas Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi this week.
Abbott got the scene-stealing act under way with a high-dollar bang on Thursday with the erection of billboards along highways leading to the Democrats' soirée in the Sparkling City by the Sea. But the governor's attempt to make a mockery of the Democrats took another wild twist on Friday morning when Abbott's campaign started hawking Talarico's Tacos from a stand outside the Hilliard Center where the minority party's convention is taking place for the next couple of days.
"Come grab a free Talarico Taco right outside the Texas Democratic Convention! " the governor declared in a post on his X page. "Our team would love to share all of the reasons we’re supporting the GOP ticket this November."
The Republican governor's obsession with the Democratic nominee in the Texas Senate race may seem a bit misguided due to the fact that Talarico is not Abbott's actual opponent in the general election in November. That distinction belongs to Gina Hinojosa - an Austin state representative whose father served as the state Democratic Party's chairman for 12 years before stepping down in 2025. Talarico - for the record - is running against Paxton in the race at the top of the ticket.
Abbott in contrast can be found about 40 spots below the congressional contests on the GOP ticket. But this is the first time that Abbott has ever been relegated to second fiddle on a Republican ticket on which he'd always been the number one star in his first three gubernatorial quests. With Talarico as the biggest star the Democrats in Texas have had in their midst during the current century, Abbott appears to be living vicariously through the state attorney general who he refused to support during the primary and runoff that Paxton won a month ago.
Abbott is running against Talarico for all practical purposes. But jealousy and the yearning for attention aren't the only factors that are driving this. The Texas governor had almost $100 million in the bank at the start of the year. He's raised jillions more since that time. So money isn't an object here.
The governor knows that every Republican in a potentially competitive contest on the Texas ballot is depending on a strong showing by Paxton as the leader of the ticket in the most critical race here maybe ever. Abbott and the Republicans were caught off guard in 2018 when the Democrats' Senate contender Beto O'Rourke almost knocked off U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in a development that caused down-ballot destruction for the GOP. That last big bue wave came during President Donald Trump's first term. Thanks to Trump's historically low popularity marks - and Paxton's record vulnerabilities for reasons that have been widely publicized for years - Abbott knows that the wave this time around could be a lot bigger than 2018.
The governor welcomed the Democrats to town on Thursday in an op-ed in the Corpus Christi Caller Times that contributed his interest to helping ensure that the Democrats' "deluded message to the nation" about Texas being in play "rings clear" at their convention on the bay.
"They believe that this is their crowning moment to turn Texas some shade of blue," Abbott said in the guest editorial in the host city newspaper.
One of the countless questions here now is what the governor do next here.
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