AUSTIN — GOP Gov. Greg Abbott and conservative state lawmakers tried to label incoming Democratic governor Gina Hinojosa a closet progressive, warning that she’ll turn the deeply red state socialist.
But after Hinojosa’s historic upset win amid a blue wave that swept every state office, Texas’s first Latina governor-elect vowed during an interview with The Washington Post at the state Capitol on Friday to avoid culture wars in favor of something Texas hasn’t seen in a generation: moderation. On a number of key issues facing her state — affordability, border security, data centers and school vouchers — Hinojosa is staking out what she calls populist positions that seem calibrated to appeal to voters at both ends of the political spectrum. That includes her pledge to work with President Donald Trump on immigration.
“I agree with President Trump that our border needs to be secure and people should not be coming here to cross into the country,” Hinojosa said. “It’s a dangerous journey and I don’t think it will be fruitful for them.”
In aTruth Social post Thursday about migrant caravans forming in Mexico, Trump referred to her as “the very liberal new governor of Texas.” Hinojosa, seated near a photo of the state’s last Democratic Gov. Ann Richards, said Friday afternoon that the Trump administration had not contacted her and she had not spoken to the president, “but I welcome that conversation.”
“Trump and I won the same border communities: I won them this time, he won them last time” in 2024, said Hinojosa, who will preside over the country’s second-largest Latino population. Latino voters in places like her native Rio Grande Valley were instrumental in Democratic wins, including one county that swung away from Republicans by more than any other in the nation.
Asked if she would end Operation Lone Star, the more than $11 billion-dollar state border security operation Abbott used emergency powers to launch in 2021, Hinojosa said she would review its legality.
“It’s essential that we have strong partnership with Washington … to make sure our local border communities are safe,” she said.
But she drew a distinction between border security and federal immigration enforcement in Texas’s interior. “The election was a referendum on how people are treated within our state, not outside of it, certainly not outside the country,” she said.
After a migrant was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last July in Houston and another ICE agent was indicted on federal assault charges there last month, Hinojosa stressed that federal agents securing the border was “very different from interior enforcement, which as we have all seen has been chaotic and dangerous and people died, people have been hurt. People are scared and angry and people’s rights are violated and that has to stop.”
Last week, Democratic Houston Mayor John Whitmire said he was directing police officers to limit their cooperation with ICE during traffic stops, challenging a policy imposed on the state’s largest city by Abbott, who had threatened to withhold state grant funding.
“That was wrong,” Hinojosa said, “requiring our city police to hold people for ICE who were, for instance, reporting domestic violence assault. That is not good for public safety. That makes us less secure when people don’t feel that they can report crimes freely or face being handed over to ICE.”
Hinojosa will not challenge Texas’s mostly Democratic municipal leaders if they block police from cooperating with ICE. But Hinojosa said she will not overturn a state law requiring sheriffs and counties that operate jails to comply with ICE.
“I will always follow the law. The law is what it is. It’s up to the legislature if that’s going to get changed,” she said.
The Texas governor has virtually unlimited emergency powers, which some GOP state lawmakers have said they fear Hinojosa will use to overturn conservative laws passed in recent years, including laws requiring people to use bathrooms that match their sex at birth, bans on abortion and gender transition medical care for minors.
Hinojosa said those fears are unfounded.
“I don’t see us trying to tackle culture wars. That was not the mandate we were given,” she said. “The mandate we were given was to deliver for Texans.”
On day one, she plans to declare a “high-cost emergency,” freeze electricity rates and suspend the 20-cent-per-gallon state gas and diesel tax. She also plans to immediately issue an emergency proclamation to the legislature to approve a measure that would send every Texas household $1,500.
“That is the emergency that families are experiencing in their homes right now: They just can’t afford basics. They can’t pay their electric bills. They can’t afford to put food on the table. They can’t afford to see the doctor,” she said.
Abbott had embraced Islamophobia, vowing to “ban sharia law,” blocking Muslim housing developments and designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, a terrorist group. Hinojosa said she would remove that designation.
“We have to use public safety measures for public safety,” she said, dismissing what she called “nonsense happening with power that should be used for public safety, money that should use for public safety, that is not being used for safety.”
She promised once she’s inaugurated Jan. 19 to declare a moratorium on data centers, but only those that have yet to receive state permits because “if they’ve already received state permits, I don’t have the power just to shut them down.”
But Hinojosa acknowledged that “there are communities who are under the impression that their water will be shut off if there’s only enough water for either them or the data centers.”
“I would intervene with all my power to stop that from happening,” she said, citing recent water shortages in Corpus Christi. “It can just never be the case that industry is prioritized over people for water that they drink and need to live.”
Hinojosa, who like Abbott is Catholic, has said she personally opposes capital punishment. Texas has executed more than 600 death row inmates since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, with an execution scheduled later this month.
But unlike outgoing Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who this month began the process of commuting the sentences of all 548 inmates on the state’s death row, Hinojosa said she would consider those on Texas’s death row “on a case-by-case basis and review and make a decision in accordance with the law.”
Hinojosa voted against the state’s abortion ban but during her campaign she also released an ad in which she spoke about her decision to carry her first pregnancy to term even after genetic testing revealed a fetal anomaly. Since the abortion ban went into effect, Texas lawmakers increased funding to $200 million for more than 100 antiabortion pregnancy centers under a state program Hinojosa said she would review and potentially veto.
“My understanding is a lot of that funding was not going to actually provide health care services for women. It should be,” she said. “I’m going to take a fine-tooth comb to that entire budget … If it is not serving Texans, not serving their health care needs, not serving families, then, yeah, I would veto that funding.”
While Hinojosa voted against a state school voucher program and vowed on the campaign trail to fight it, she said that instead of executive action, she plans to work with the legislature to reshape the program, potentially using it to expand access to prekindergarten.
“It’s going to all be one big negotiation,” she said.
Hinojosa spoke out during her campaign against mid-decade redistricting her GOP colleagues forced through the legislature last summer despite a Democratic quorum break. But she said she doesn’t have to power to reverse it.
”That’s something that the legislature would have to pass a law to do,” she said.
Republicans retained their majority in the state Senate, and some have suggested they may use Senate rules to strip the incoming Democratic lieutenant governor of her power to lead the senate, effectively blocking Democrats’ legislation and the governor’s priorities.
But Hinojosa said Lt. Gov. Vikki Goodwin has been “working with her team to ensure that the voice of the voters is heard, and the voters voted for change.”
Hinojosa was elected to the state legislature almost a decade ago, and said she has worked with Republicans on education and other issues, including a former GOP colleague she included on her transition team. She noted she’ll have help from two Democratic state senators — Nathan Johnson, who was elected attorney general, and Sarah Eckhardt, the comptroller-elect.
Walking the halls of the Capitol on Friday, Hinojosa shook hands with voters and children in tour groups, all of whom congratulated her. She visited the empty floors of the state House and Senate, pointing out the clear line of sight between them.
“I am hearing very positive feedback from senators who are looking forward to working with me,” Hinojosa said. “I know how the legislative process works. I know these people. I know what’s important to them. And I know how to get things done here.”
The post Texas’s Democratic gov.-elect vows to trade GOP culture wars for moderation appeared first on Washington Post.
