Gina Hinojosa is running for governor against Greg Abbott in a race that has become surprisingly competitive. Recent polls show her narrowly ahead of the Republican incumbent. Hinojosa said, "I am running to win." She focuses on education and affordability, hoping to finally flip Texas for the Democratic party.
Democrats have Texas-size dreams this election of flipping a state that has eluded them since the 1990s. While the Democratic candidate for Senate, James Talarico, has gotten most of the attention and money in that fight, another Democrat, Gina Hinojosa, has looked surprisingly competitive against the most powerful politician in the state: Gov. Greg Abbott, the Republican running for an unprecedented fourth term.
Hinojosa is a Texas state legislator who represents parts of liberal Austin. Her political rise began on her local school board, where she was inspired to run for the State Legislature because of cuts to public school funding under Abbott. That became one of her signature issues, which she has carried over into her run for governor.
When she began her campaign, she was seen as the longest of long shots: a Latina with little statewide name recognition and not a lot of financial support. Today, the most recent New York Times/Siena University poll shows her narrowly ahead of Abbott, and national Democrats are finally taking notice, directing money toward the race in these last few crucial weeks. I asked Hinojosa whether that will be enough to overcome an extremely well-funded Abbott, who declined our interview request. We also talked about why she is focusing on affordability, education and data centers rather than what she calls "culture-war issues" and how she is trying to pull in disaffected rural MAGA voters. Can she win? And what will it say about Texas if she does?
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I was told by a Texas reporter that in some ways you ran for governor -- a position last held by your party in 1995 by another woman, Ann Richards -- as a sacrificial lamb. It was the longest of long shots, you had no real chance, but basically some Democrat had to do it and so it might as well be you. Did you see it that way too? No. I wouldn't have given up a year of my life away from my family to be on the road all across the state to be a sacrificial lamb. I am running to win. It is not an easy endeavor to do this, and it took everything out of me from this last year.
Texas keeps breaking Democratic hearts. What are you doing differently than, say, Beto O'Rourke, who was the last Democrat to run against Abbott? He had a lot of name recognition, a lot of momentum behind him nationally, and yet he still lost by 11 points. I don't know that I can compare my candidacy to Beto's. It's a different time. In 2026, the data centers have been a physical manifestation of a governor doing the bidding of the moneyed interests and leaving the people of Texas to fend for themselves. And so in that way, rural Texas has felt betrayed by Greg Abbott because many of these data centers have descended upon rural Texas where there are no rules really.