⭐ Morning Briefing — September 23, 2026

Top Story: National coverage from CNBC, plus new campaign-trail remarks and polling reported by CBS News Texas, confirm data centers have hardened into a top-tier issue in Texas's tightening 2026 governor's and U.S. Senate races — days after Gov. Abbott's statewide TCEQ permit freeze.

📰 Today's News

1. 🗳️ Data Centers Harden Into a Top-Tier Issue in Texas's Governor's and Senate Races

CNBC published a lengthy feature Wednesday on how data-center opposition is scrambling Texas's 2026 statewide races. A Texas Politics Project poll cited in the piece found 57% of Texas voters oppose a data center being built in their own community — including 43% of Republicans, 54% of independents, and 60% of rural voters.
The RealClearPolitics polling average now has Gov. Abbott leading Democratic nominee Gina Hinojosa by just 2.2 points, 48.3%-46.1%. Abbott addressed the tightening race Tuesday at a campaign stop in Gainesville, telling CBS News Texas: "What we have seen is a necessity to rein in an industry that was completely out of control." Asked whether his new TCEQ freeze meant his earlier ERCOT-only pause "wasn't working," Abbott said the pause "has worked" but that data centers now face a broader halt on "any permit" in the state.
In the Senate race, Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Ken Paxton in most public polls (Cook Political Report calls it a "toss-up"). CNBC reports Paxton's campaign has drawn more than $400,000 from data-center-linked donors, while a pro-Talarico PAC has received $11 million from LinkedIn co-founder and AI investor Reid Hoffman. President Trump posted on Truth Social in August that communities resisting data centers should "let Data Reign," leaving Abbott and Paxton caught between his position and a cross-partisan backlash CNBC found includes lifelong Republicans in Fannin and Grayson counties now considering voting for a Democrat for the first time over local data-center projects.

Today's Signal: When a governor polling within 2.2 points of his challenger tightens his own environmental regulator's permitting rules eight days into election season, the line between policy and politics isn't really worth drawing anymore — CNBC's reporting makes that explicit in a way this briefing has previously only been able to infer.

2. 📋 Denton and Fort Worth Both Push Ahead on Local Data-Center Moratoriums

The Denton City Council held the first of two required public hearings Tuesday night on a proposed 90-day data-center moratorium (extendable to roughly six months). Every one of the more than 20 residents who spoke supported it, and when Mayor Pro Tem Nick Stevens asked for a show of hands, no one in the audience opposed it. City officials noted Denton's two existing data centers — one nearing completion, one about to break ground — would be unaffected, since the moratorium only covers new applications; those two facilities have generated over $3.5 million in taxes and nearly $9 million in electric ROI and franchise fees so far. Denton Municipal Electric has separately proposed roughly $300 million in transmission upgrades and is awaiting ERCOT's response, citing a system nearing capacity. A second hearing is set for Oct. 27, with a council vote expected in December.
In Fort Worth — which has four operating data centers, one under construction, and four more proposed — the city's Data Center and Infrastructure Commission is due to deliver recommendations to the council Nov. 3, ahead of a public hearing on its own proposed 90-day pause set for Nov. 10. Tarrant County Commissioner Matt Krause, who held a Sept. 8 town hall on the Circle T project proposed near the Westlake/Keller line, said residents told him that even relocating a project's power and water and cutting its noise wouldn't satisfy them at 506 feet from a residential neighborhood.

Today's Signal: Denton and Fort Worth are on different clocks — one already drawing unanimous crowds to hearings, the other still months from its first commission report — but both are converging on the same 90-day-pause playbook the state itself adopted in August.

3. 🏗️ Google and Crusoe Face Water and Jobs Questions at a Panhandle Construction Site

Google and Crusoe held a Tuesday evening open house in Claude, Texas (Armstrong County) to answer resident questions about a data center already under construction there. Crusoe's Jeremy Bachrach confirmed the roughly 760-acre, six-building project — which Google is expected to operate — currently has about 7,500 construction workers on site, with the first buildings due to be handed over to Google in early 2027 and the rest by the end of that year.
On water, Bachrach said each building is expected to use about as much water annually as 16 households, drawing on a closed-loop system that recirculates its initial fill for roughly 15 years rather than drawing continuously. Attendee Patrick Griffin, whose family ranches near Claude, said his central concern was longer-term aquifer drawdown for area farmers and ranchers.
Google's Austin Hutchinson acknowledged the companies were "a little bit behind the ball" on community outreach, and said safety patrols near Claude High School were added only after residents raised concerns about construction traffic and children crossing the highway. Google has committed to just over 50 permanent jobs once the facility is operating.

Today's Signal: 7,500 construction workers against roughly 50 permanent jobs is the ratio driving a lot of these fights statewide — it's not that data centers create no local jobs, it's that the overwhelming majority of them leave with the construction crews.

📍 Today's Watch List

Whether the tightening RealClearPolitics numbers (Abbott +2.2 over Hinojosa) keep pushing data centers further into the center of the campaign as early voting approaches — early voting begins Oct. 19 (registration deadline Oct. 5), with Election Day Nov. 3.
TCEQ owes an update on its data-center permitting decisions by October 19, per Monday's Abbott letter.
Denton's second public hearing on its proposed moratorium — Oct. 27, with a council vote expected in December.
Fort Worth's Data Center and Infrastructure Commission reports recommendations to city council Nov. 3, ahead of a public hearing on its own moratorium proposal Nov. 10.
Whether TCEQ rules on Bastrop County residents' request to overturn two stormwater permits already issued for a 2,842-acre data-center-and-power project there.
Whether Google and Crusoe's Armstrong County outreach heads off further pushback as construction continues toward the project's early-2027 handover.
ERCOT's December 10 audit-completion deadline — no material movement expected before the December PUC meeting, so this stays at the bottom of the list until that date approaches.