Abbott pitches property-tax cuts in Sherman two days after Gainesville data-center stop, campaign says

Gov. Greg Abbott took his pitch for lower household costs to MG's Burger Restaurant in Sherman on Thursday, Sept. 24, according to his campaign. There he promoted plans to cut property taxes, health care costs and insurance rates. Two days earlier, at a hat manufacturer in Gainesville, he said data-center developers should pay for their own power infrastructure and protect local water, electricity and neighborhoods, the campaign said.

State Rep. Shelley Luther joined the governor at the Sherman stop, the campaign said. Its account says Abbott promoted his Texas Taxpayer Empowerment plan there. The account does not mention data centers. It also does not link the appearance to the November election.

The campaign's account of the Gainesville stop says the discussion included a requirement that developers fund the electricity infrastructure their projects need. Abbott also spoke about protecting community water supplies, the power available to residents and the neighborhoods near those sites, according to the campaign.

The governor's campaign laid out his property-tax plan by November 2025. It has five parts: limits on local spending, a two-thirds voter threshold for tax increases, voter power to roll taxes back, appraisal limits, and an end to school property taxes for homeowners. The campaign described these as proposals requiring future legislative action.

Homeowners already get a break on the school part of the bill. The Texas Comptroller lists a mandatory school homestead exemption of $140,000. The Texas Education Agency says the 2025 law that raised the exemption also gave school districts added state aid to replace the local revenue they lost. According to the Comptroller, the school exemption does not automatically carry over to other taxing units such as cities.

City rates move on their own schedule. Gainesville's published city rate for 2026-27 is about 6% higher than the rate for the year before, according to the city. Sherman kept its city rate flat in the budget it adopted Sept. 8, but city records show that budget raises utility rates for homes and businesses.

Abbott's Gainesville remarks followed a series of state actions on data centers. On Sept. 21, the governor's office announced that he had told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt data-center permits until an audit by ERCOT, the state grid operator, is complete. The governor's office said he ordered that audit on Aug. 3 for projects seeking a grid connection, and that he said noncompliant projects should be denied one. In June, according to the governor's office, he told regulators to make data centers pay for the infrastructure that serves them and said he would seek laws on water-efficient cooling, setbacks and noise.

In March, ERCOT reported that data centers accounted for about 87% of the electricity capacity sought in large-load connection requests. Those requests describe projects seeking a hookup, not power already in use. In April, ERCOT cautioned that its preliminary long-term load forecast ran above its own expectations for actual growth. The grid operator called that forecast a planning snapshot, not a prediction of which projects would be built.

Texas holds its general election on Nov. 3, according to the Secretary of State. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5.