For homeowners, he cut real estate taxes to make the state’s already cheap housing a bit more affordable. And a few months ago, with the state facing a $27 billion deficit in its two-year budget, Mr. Perry called lawmakers into a special session and insisted they not raise taxes. The Republican-dominated Legislature complied, slashing billions of dollars in aid to public schools.

“He’s been a promoter of stability in regulatory policy and stability in spending,” said Talmadge Heflin, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Fiscal Policy and a former Republican state representative. “That gives him something to show for whatever he runs for.”

As the Republican race pits the Texas governor against a former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, the economies of the two states are bound to be contrasted. Texas has far outstripped Massachusetts in the number of jobs created over the last two years. But by other measures, the Massachusetts economy has been stronger, with a lower unemployment rate in June and economic growth of 4.2 percent last year, compared with 2.8 percent in Texas.

Few debate that Mr. Perry, 61, has been true to a “less government is better government” philosophy in one of the few states without an income tax. The question his detractors raise, however, is whether Mr. Perry has gotten a free ride — and has gone untested — because of the state’s natural resources.

When Mr. Perry succeeded Mr. Bush, a barrel of oil was $25. Experts warned that Texas’s natural gas and oil fields, which directly and indirectly support about one-third of its jobs, were in steep decline. But during his first term, global market forces began driving oil prices up. They peaked at $147 a barrel in 2008 and have largely remained above $80 over the last two years.

At the same time, a technological revolution in drilling — the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling of shale rock — has opened up new gas and oil fields throughout the state. In North Texas, companies are drilling under schools, airports and parks. Tens of thousands of rig jobs have been created and many residents have received thousands of dollars in lease sales and royalties.

The oil and gas industry now delivers roughly $325 billion a year to the state, directly and indirectly. It brings in $13 billion in state tax receipts, or roughly 40 percent of the total, financing up to 20 percent of the state budget.