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Texas Governor Greg Abbott handily lost the Lone Star State's county with the highest number of border crossings during his reelection, despite making border security one of the central themes of his reelection campaign.
Abbott, along with other Republicans, swept Texas' statewide races on Tuesday, pouring water on Democratic hopes of flipping the conservative-leaning state for the first time in more than 25 years. Abbott beat his Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke by 11 points despite disappointing results for the GOP across the country.
However, Abbott did not carry El Paso County, home to the Democratic-leaning city that saw more border crossings than any other Texas county in 2021—in which there were more than 6.5 million border crossings, according to data from the Department of Transportation (DOT).
O'Rourke, who represented the area in Congress from 2013 to 2019, won El Paso County with more than 60 percent of the vote. His victory in El Paso is not particularly unexpected, as President Joe Biden carried the county by more than 30 points in the 2020 presidential election.
Abbott emphasized border security throughout his campaign. Throughout his tenure as governor, Abbott began the construction of a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. He pledged that if he were elected to a third term, he would double appropriations "to add, manpower, technology, and tools for added surveillance," according to his campaign's website.
He also sought to tie O'Rourke to Biden's border policies, which his critics argue led to an uptick in asylum seekers at the border. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported a 37 percent increase in land border encounters from 2021 to 2022. Experts also point to external factors, including politically volatile conditions in some Central American countries, as driving the rise in asylum seekers.
Despite Abbott's immigration push, O'Rouke carried most of Texas' border counties—which have historically leaned Democrat despite GOP gains in 2020—including those with the highest numbers of border crossings in 2021.
He won Webb County and Cameron County, home to Laredo and Brownsville, which saw nearly 6 million and 3.9 million border crossings in 2021 respectively, according to DOT data.
El Paso's border crossings were still eclipsed by San Ysidro, California, which saw nearly 13.9 million border crossings in 2021, according to the Department of Transportation.
O'Rourke focused on gun control throughout his campaign, honing in on Abbott's responses to shootings in El Paso and Uvalde, which renewed calls for stronger gun safety laws in Texas. In 2019, a white supremacist traveled to El Paso, a predominantly Latino community, killing 23 people.
Abbott lost El Paso by nearly 36 percentage points in his 2018 reelection bid.
Newsweek reached out to Abbott's campaign for comment.
About the writer
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more