At Dallas convention, Texas Republicans claim credit for tax cuts, blame Democrats for high prices
By Gabby Birenbaum and Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune
September 10, 2026
DALLAS — Onstage at the GOP midterm convention, Texas Republicans’ message on the economy was split between two tracks.
Popular elements of the party’s economic agenda — like new tax breaks for tip earners and workers making overtime — are evidence that President Donald Trump and the GOP took action to help working families, they argued. But persistent frustrations over the high cost of groceries and gas lay at the feet of Democrats and the policies of Joe Biden’s White House.
The GOP’s fortunes in this midterm election, including in battleground Texas, will hinge largely on whether Republicans can get voters to split their feelings about the economy the same way. Voters have routinely ranked affordability and cost-of-living concerns as their top issues this cycle.
Speakers had abundant praise for no tax on tips, investment accounts for children and the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Left unmentioned — except by the president himself — were the tariffs he has imposed on global trade partners and the rise in gas prices that followed his decision to pursue war with Iran.
“It happens to me all the time,” Trump said from the stage Wednesday night. “Guys come up, ‘You know, I wish you didn’t do the war in Iran. Gasoline’s up.’ And I say, ‘Well, let me ask you this, smart people … Can Iran have a nuclear weapon? Absolutely not. Well, then I’m right.’”
Republicans in tough races may be especially set on avoiding talk of Iran or the trade war, with polls after poll showing voters disapprove of both battles and blame them for driving up costs. But at an event marketed as Trump-a-palooza, those candidates may have to live with being tied to all of Trump’s economic policies — the popular and the unpopular alike.
Attorney General Ken Paxton took the stage Wednesday evening, the first of two days of convention fare in Dallas, to detail his economic plan that calls for tax breaks for healthcare- and housing-related spending. The Republican U.S. Senate nominee acknowledged that he often meets Texans “that are working harder than ever, but still worry that they will never get ahead.”
Paxton attacked his opponent, James Talarico, on a number of familiar culture war issues. But he also went after the Democrat’s record on taxes, including his professed opposition to the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans’ tax and spending megabill passed in 2025.
“He wants to tax your tips. He wants to tax your overtime. And he even wants to tax your Social Security,” Paxton said, alluding to Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate taxes on the retiree benefit, which instead yielded a temporary tax deduction for some who are 65 and older.
As Paxton and others try to hammer him on taxes, the economy is a topic Talarico is all too happy to discuss. The Democrat has highlighted high costs in his ads and on the stump, arguing that Republicans have rigged the economy in favor of the wealthy and “sold the false Gospel of trickle-down economics.” He has proposed raising taxes on corporations and billionaires, eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy and raising the minimum wage in his own economic plan.
Speakers throughout the convention accused Democrats of wanting to run amok taxing the middle class and bringing socialism to America. That rhetoric collided with Trump’s call to send $5,000 dividends to all American adults, which Paxton later said he would support in interviews Thursday.
Meanwhile, GOP candidates in Texas’ battleground U.S. House races also tried to thread the economic needle during their convention speaking slots.
Siblings Carlos and Monica De La Cruz, running for Congress in South Texas, discussed their humble beginnings onstage and praised the GOP for the creation of new tax breaks and extending tax rates. Both pointed the finger at Democrats for high prices.
“I know what a stack of bills looks like on a kitchen table,” Monica De La Cruz, an Edinburg Republican seeking reelection to her third term, said. “And for four years, Joe Biden and his party made that stack taller.”
Republicans, by contrast, “passed legislation that created the largest tax cut in American history,” De La Cruz said.
House Democratic candidates are emphasizing different elements of the GOP economic agenda — and tying candidates like Monica De La Cruz to issues they see as political vulnerabilities for Republicans.
“Texas voters know how much damage De La Cruz’s tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and war-of-choice in Iran is doing to their wallets – no matter how much she lies to them,” said Madison Andrus, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national party’s House campaign arm.
Some Texas candidates bypassed the economy entirely in their time onstage, or at least devoted the lion’s share to other topics.
Republicans Eric Flores and Tano Tijerina, both running to flip Democratic U.S. House seats in South Texas, delivered speeches on the border as part of a segment focused on immigration policy. And Sen. Ted Cruz homed in on sharia law in a speech packed with red meat for the Texas GOP base, hitting on the economy by painting Democrats as a party increasingly under the spell of communism.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both of whom are running for reelection, touted Texas as a bastion of conservatism while arguing that Democrats — who have not held power in the state in decades — are a threat to freedom, capitalism and Christian values.
In an address that primarily framed the election in biblical terms — light vs. dark, capitalism vs. “godless” communism — Patrick said “conservative values have made Texas the strongest economy on the planet,” without addressing the rising costs that have hit red and blue states alike.
“Our pro-business, pro-tax policies in Texas are attracting billions of dollars in investment. Low taxes and no income tax will always do that,” Patrick said. “Meanwhile, the Democrats want us to look like California or Russia or China.”
Abbott called the election “a choice between common sense and crazy,” spending most of his speech Thursday focusing on “Democrats running statewide” and the “craziness” he claimed they would promote. Examples he cited included their votes against legislation that would raise the threshold for enacting a state income tax and affirming that only U.S. citizens can vote. Texas has never imposed an income tax, and state and federal law has long held that only citizens may vote.
Both Abbott’s and Patrick’s Democratic challengers — state Reps. Gina Hinojosa and Vikki Goodwin, respectively — have argued that the Republican incumbents each had years in power to improve Texans’ lives but instead prioritized culture war issues and their big-money donors.
“Dan Patrick has had more than a decade to deliver for Texas families. Instead, he decided to focus on culture wars and kickbacks for his billionaire donors,” Goodwin wrote in a fundraising pitch sent just after Patrick’s speech concluded.
In counterprogramming throughout the convention, Democrats repeatedly argued that Republicans were to blame for driving up everyday costs, faulting what they said were deals cut by GOP politicians to help big corporations and the ultrawealthy.
The Democratic National Committee launched a digital ad on conservative YouTube channels this week featuring Trump’s comments that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situations,” and saying, “I love the inflation.”
“Donald Trump and Republicans tanked the economy and drove up costs, and voters don’t need to look further than Trump’s own words to know where his priorities lie,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
Alongside Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at a news conference Wednesday, Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder argued that “Trump’s trickle-up economics is taking money out of your pocket and giving it to the richest people in this country.”
“Not a single day has Donald Trump or Republican leadership or the clowns like Ken Paxton gotten out of bed and thought about how to make your life better,” Scudder said.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.