Abbott's odds hold at 65% in Texas governor market as court fight over Musk emails heats up

Gov. Greg Abbott remains a clear favorite on Kalshi heading into the final days of early voting, even as his race against Democrat Gina Hinojosa turns into a legal brawl over his office's communications with Elon Musk.

Kalshi's Texas governor market prices Abbott at 65% to win a record fourth term, compared with 36% for Hinojosa. That's little changed from Monday, with more than $8.5 million traded, and Kalshi's margin market projects an Abbott win of about 2.7 points.

The biggest story of the week is a court battle Hinojosa has been building for more than a month. In 2025, The Texas Newsroom requested Abbott's communications with Musk's Texas companies. The governor's office released 1,374 pages, but all except about 200 were fully blacked out, with some withheld as "intimate and embarrassing." In September, Hinojosa requested the same records under the Texas Public Information Act, arguing that as a sitting legislator she is entitled to inspect them confidentially. When Abbott's office refused, she sued on Oct. 19, the first day of early voting.

On Monday, Travis County District Judge Catherine Mauzy ordered Abbott's office to let Hinojosa review the unredacted records by 10 a.m. Thursday, under a confidentiality agreement that bars her from disclosing them, CBS Austin reported. Abbott appealed immediately, and on Tuesday the 15th Court of Appeals, whose three justices were all appointed by Abbott, froze the order, KUT reported. A hearing is set for Nov. 2, the day before the election.

Hinojosa is making the emails a closing argument. "Abbott should release the emails," she told KSAT, adding that Texans "deserve to know what Abbott is fighting so hard to keep hidden." Her campaign framed the ruling as a test of who the governor serves: "Abbott uses his power for his donors."

Abbott's office is fighting back on the judge herself. Spokesman Andrew Mahaleris called it "a sham lawsuit in a rigged district court," and the governor's general counsel accused Hinojosa of "handpicking one of her own campaign donors to serve as judge," pointing to a $500 contribution Mauzy made to Hinojosa's campaign in June, KUT reported. Hinojosa spokesman Tommy Kubitschek shot back in a statement to Bloomberg Law: "If they are worried about $500, just wait until they find out what $5.5 million bought Musk."

That figure includes a fresh $5 million check. Musk was Abbott's largest donor in the latest reporting period, which ran from Sept. 25 to Oct. 25, The Texan reported. Abbott raised more than $26 million in that stretch to Hinojosa's $17.5 million, and ended it with about $8.6 million on hand to her roughly $1 million.

Abbott is also taking fire from inside his own party. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican who lost his March primary to Abbott-backed Nate Sheets, said last week that he cast his ballot without voting for the governor. "I did not vote for our governor, Greg Abbott. He needs to go," Miller said. Asked whether he voted for Hinojosa, he answered, "That's between me and my God."

Miller has spent months hammering Abbott over data-center donors, the same line of attack Hinojosa is pressing with the Musk emails. Over the summer, he accused Abbott of giving "a wink and a nod to his data center people" and called the governor's response "smoke and mirrors," in an interview with Raw Story.

The newest polls show Abbott holding a steadier lead than Republicans have in the Senate race, and the reason is crossover voting.

The Fox News poll released Oct. 21 has Abbott up 52% to 47% among likely voters, unchanged since September, even as the Senate race in the same survey moved to a 49–49 tie. Fox found 7% of Talarico supporters backing Abbott, compared with just 2% of Paxton supporters backing Hinojosa. Abbott's job approval sits at a narrowly positive 50% to 48%.

Other recent surveys are tighter. The University of Houston's Hobby School poll has Abbott ahead 49% to 46%, with 13% of respondents saying they don't know enough about Hinojosa to form an opinion. A CBS News poll put the race at 52% to 48%. Kalshi's polling average shows Abbott at 48.7% to Hinojosa's 46.4%.

That split is visible on Kalshi too: traders give Talarico a 67% chance in the Senate race while making Abbott a 65% favorite. The Texas governor–Senate combo market lets traders price that split outcome directly.

Abbott escalated his attacks on Hinojosa over the weekend. In a Sunday interview with Fox News, he accused her of supporting Sharia law, citing an endorsement she received from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, The Hill reported. Abbott designated CAIR a foreign terrorist organization under state authority last year, a move CAIR's Texas chapters challenged in federal court.

His campaign also released a new ad Sunday casting Hinojosa as dangerous and too radical for Texas, while Abbott communications director Catherine Frazier framed the race as a choice between chaos and "common-sense leadership."

Abbott isn't running like a three-term incumbent sitting on a lead. His "Let's Roll" tour has taken him across the state since early voting opened, including a Sunday rally in Hutto followed by door-knocking with volunteers, KVUE reported. "Door-to-door voter contact is the most effective way to get people out to vote," Abbott said.

His closing pitch is property taxes. In Inez on Tuesday, he promised to eliminate the school district property tax for homeowners, "saving them over $3,000 per year," according to his campaign, which is also hitting Hinojosa over her own "out-of-state billionaire and multi-millionaire donors," per The Texan. He heads to El Paso on Thursday and Lubbock on Friday, the last day of early voting.

All that travel is aimed at the early vote, and the final stretch may be moving in Abbott's direction. More than 5.1 million Texans had voted early through Monday, 26.9% of registered voters, according to TexPolls. In-person turnout is running 56% ahead of the same point in the 2022 midterm.

The partisan mix is shifting. Through Sunday, in-person early voters with a Democratic primary history and those with a Republican one were dead even. By Tuesday, Republican primary voters had edged ahead, 32.3% to 31.9%, per theoelections' tracker, which sorts voters by past primary participation. That's the late Republican surge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick predicted, and there's room for more: about 2.1 million Texans who voted in a recent GOP primary still hadn't cast a ballot as of Sunday, according to an analysis by voter data analyst Derek Ryan cited by The Texas Tribune.

Hinojosa's path still runs through new voters. Hispanic voters made up 18% of the early vote through Sunday, a point above 2024 and two above 2022, per the Tribune. More than 40% of early voters who skipped 2024 are Hispanic, about double their share among repeat voters, according to VoteHub's Zachary Donnini. Hinojosa's "One Fight" tour was scheduled to hit Corpus Christi on Monday as part of that push, the Victoria Advocate reported.

Still, early vote data shows who is turning out, not who they're backing, and Texas doesn't register voters by party. "We don't know how people are voting," Democratic strategist Matt Angle told the Tribune. Ryan expects 20% to 30% of all votes to be cast from Wednesday through Friday, meaning much of the picture is still unsettled.

Early voting ends Friday, Oct. 30, ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3.

Abbott's 65% price rests on two advantages Hinojosa hasn't been able to erase: Talarico voters willing to split their tickets, and a late Republican turnout surge that is now showing up in the early-vote data. The Fox poll had Abbott up 5 points even as the Senate race sat tied, and Abbott still holds a big cash edge heading into the final weekend.

Hinojosa is betting the Musk emails can change that. Even if she never sees them before Election Day, the court fight keeps her donor-influence message in the headlines through the Nov. 2 hearing, the day before Election Day. If new Hispanic voters and the big-county surge hold, Texas could elect its first Democratic governor since Ann Richards. If Republicans keep closing the gap through Friday, Abbott is on track for a record fourth term.

Kalshi markets now predict:

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