Texas

Texas is the second most populous US state with approximately 30 million residents and holds 38 congressional seats. It is governed by Greg Abbott (R) with a Republican-supermajority legislature. Texas has not returned a statewide Democratic majority since 1994. Its political geography centres on three Democratic urban cores, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio/Austin, surrounded by Republican exurbs and rural districts.

Texas is the US epicentre of crude oil production, home to the Permian Basin and major Gulf Coast refining infrastructure. The ERCOT grid serves approximately 90 per cent of the state's electricity demand and is the largest deregulated power market in the US, operating outside FERC jurisdiction. The ERCOT large-load interconnection queue passed 225 GW by April 2026, over 70% attributable to data centres. The state is also the primary site for the Stargate programme's US build-out, with the Abilene campus targeting approximately 1.2 GW.

Texas is the most permissive large state for data centre development, with no statewide moratorium and a deregulated power market. The ERCOT large-load queue reached 438 GW by June 2026, roughly 90 per cent attributable to data centres and nearly double the 225 GW recorded in April 2026, against a process designed for 40-50 large loads at a time. Good Jobs First identified Texas as losing more than $1 billion per year in data-centre sales-and-use tax abatements. The Stargate Abilene campus runs approximately 1.2 GW; xAI's Colossus cluster received 41 Siemens Energy gas turbines in emergency procurement.

On 18 June 2026 the Texas Public Utility Commission approved ERCOT's first formal Batch Zero large-load interconnection study process, the first attempt to impose structured triage on a queue that has nearly doubled in three months. The final transmission plan is not due until autumn 2027, with Batch 1 applications opening summer 2027. Until then, no new large-load applicant has a confirmed interconnection timeline.

The Supreme Court cleared Texas's PlanC2333 congressional map for use in the 2026 midterms on 27 April 2026, reversing a lower-court racial-gerrymandering ruling. The same six-justice majority acted two days before its Callais ruling gutted VRA Section 2, doubly insulating the map. Ken Paxton defeated incumbent John Cornyn 63.8% to 36% in the Republican Senate runoff on 26 May; the seat was immediately downgraded from Likely to Leans Republican by Cook and Sabato.

Texas is the physical origin of WTI crude, the US domestic benchmark, through its Permian Basin output corridor feeding pipelines to the Cushing, Oklahoma hub. Texas refining along the Gulf Coast processes a significant share of US crude throughput, making refinery utilisation data from the state directly relevant to EIA weekly reports. Refinery runs held at 94.8% in the week to 29 May 2026 , supporting gasoline and distillate crack spreads monitored by NWE traders. The CFTC positioning collapse in WTI, from net long +172,580 to near-flat in a single week, reflects the divergence between Texas pipeline-delivered crude and Brent's seaborne Hormuz-exposed pricing .

Texas is hosting World Cup matches in Dallas (AT&T Stadium) and Houston (NRG Stadium), with North Texas projecting 6 million visitors and a $2 billion economic impact. Both host cities have signed ICE collaboration agreements, drawing civil rights concerns for immigrant fans. On 3 July 2026 the Texas Attorney General opened an investigation into StubHub over undelivered and revoked tickets, a separate consumer-protection front from the federal class action filed in New York and the existing scrutiny of FIFA's own dynamic pricing.