When Gina Hinojosa, a Democratic state lawmaker with a progressive record, decided to run for Texas governor last year, many people — including some Hispanic voters she will need to win — were skeptical.
“Pa’ que?” she was asked over and over. “For what?”
Gov. Greg Abbott, a third-term Republican, seemed unbeatable. He sat on a sizable campaign war chest and could rely on a well-tuned campaign infrastructure that has helped keep him in office for more than a decade. He had already faced a better-known, better-funded Democratic challenger four years ago, Beto O’Rourke, and easily defeated him.
“The conventional wisdom is that no one can beat Greg Abbott,” Ms. Hinojosa said in an interview. She said she had entered the race because she saw no other Democrat willing to do so.
“I decided I needed to try,” she said.
Even in year where Democratic optimism in Texas runs high, Ms. Hinojosa, a state representative, faces a daunting challenge. She has little name recognition outside her safely Democratic district in Austin and has struggled to raise the funds needed to compete with Mr. Abbott. He has outspent her by more than 10-to-1 and still had about 20 times as much money in his campaign account at the end of the most recent filing period, in mid-July. That financial disadvantage has hampered her efforts to introduce herself to Texans across a state where it is notably expensive to campaign.
Republican political consultants in Texas are dismissive of her chances.
“It’s wholly unrealistic that Gina Hinojosa has any credible chance at victory,” said Anthony Holm, a Republican strategist.
But the hope that reliably returns for Texas Democrats every four years has found new life in the governor’s race. The reason is a surprising polling trend: Ms. Hinojosa has repeatedly appeared within striking distance of the governor.
Texas Democrats have been here before. In 2010, a few summer polls suggested a competitive race between Bill White, a Democrat, and Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican. By the fall, Mr. Perry was consistently leading in the polls, and he won by nearly 13 points. In 2022, several polls had Beto O’Rourke just five points behind Mr. Abbott. Democrats believed then, too. But Mr. Abbott’s polling lead grew in the fall, and Mr. O’Rourke lost by nearly 11 points.
Recent surveys from Fox News and by the University of Texas suggest a close governor’s race this year, with Mr. Abbott’s lead in the low- to mid-single digits. Last year, polls showed him leading by a wider margin.
“Greg Abbott is facing the most challenging election of his career,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor and pollster at Rice University. “Right now you have voters who are unhappy about Abbott and unhappy with Trump, but don’t know much about Hinojosa other than that she’s the Democratic candidate.”
In the past few months Mr. Abbott has avoided mentioning her name, instead choosing instead to attack James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and warning Republicans about the broader threat posed by Democrats. But in recent weeks, the Abbott campaign has begun regularly attacking Ms. Hinojosa and her record, focusing in particular on her support for the rights of transgender and LGBTQ+ children and youth.
“From prosecuting parents who ‘misgender’ their own child to voting in favor of Texas public schools transitioning kids behind parents’ backs, Hinojosa is a rubber stamp for the Socialist Democrats and their gender insanity.” said Eduardo Leal, a press secretary for the governor’s campaign.
Ms. Hinojosa, who has described herself as progressive in the past, now favors the term “populist,” she said in the interview. “It is no longer progressive versus moderate,” she said of the 2026 election. “It is about: Are we going to have candidates who are going to work for the people?”
A major question facing Democrats across Texas, including Ms. Hinojosa, is whether Latino voters, particularly men who supported President Trump in 2024, will return to the Democratic Party this November.
At a recent event in San Antonio, organized by the Latino Victory Fund and called “Latinas for Gina Hinojosa,” Orlando Ventura, 21, was among a small group of Hispanic men cheering her on.
“I don’t see a lot of Latinos supporting her, but I want to see more,” Mr. Ventura said.
Ms. Hinojosa has received support from fellow Democrats in an effort to raise her profile and introduce her to Democrats across the state. She ate tacos with former President Barack Obama and Mr. Talarico in Austin in May.
But her lack of name recognition was clear at a Democratic event last month in Beeville, near Corpus Christi, where Ms. Hinojosa appeared alongside Mr. Talarico and Bobby Pulido, a Tejano star running for a South Texas congressional seat.
Bea Martinez, 65, a retired educator, said she knew about Mr. Pulido and Mr. Talarico but was unfamiliar with Ms. Hinojosa.
“I don’t know much about her, but I am fed up with Abbott,” Ms. Martinez said. “I voted for him in the past, but I think it’s time for someone new.”
For Ms. Hinojosa, such voters represent both the challenge and the opportunity of her campaign: Texans who know little about her but may be open to someone other than Mr. Abbott. Like other Democrats nationwide, she is trying to harness voter anger over the cost of living and the growth of data centers, which voters blame for rising electricity prices and water use. She has also looked to differentiate herself as a Texas Democrat.
In an emotional ad that began airing at the end of August, Ms. Hinojosa talked about her decision to carry a high-risk pregnancy to term decades ago. “I did understand, but I was making that choice — I chose her,” Ms. Hinojosa says in the ad. The baby died soon after she was born.
While in the Legislature, Ms. Hinojosa opposed the anti-abortion laws passed by Texas Republicans. The ad appeared to underscore the idea that supporting abortion rights did not mean, in her case, that abortion was necessarily the choice she would make.
On Sept. 9, she released an ad that drew blowback for invoking pronouns, an issue many Democratic politicians have shifted away from following political setbacks. In it, she says, “I’m Gina Hinojosa. My pronouns are Mom, Texan and, soon to be, governor.”
Mr. Abbott, for his part, has campaigned on middle-of-the-road positions like lowering property taxes and on red-meat causes such as preventing transgender girls from participating in female sports. He has more than $60 million in campaign funds on hand.
By contrast, Ms. Hinojosa, who calls herself a populist, raised about $6 million, with about $3 million on hand, as of the mid-July filing.
Ms. Hinojosa said in an interview that she had never intended to run for political office. Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, she worked as a civil rights and labor lawyer in Austin.
She first ran for office in 2011, seeking a seat on the school board after state budget cuts threatened to close an elementary school that one of her sons attended.
“That’s the motivation for any of this, my desire to protect our kids,” she said. She won that race. She later ran for state representative in Austin, a seat she has held since 2017. She is not seeking re-election to the House as she runs for governor.
Ms. Hinojosa has made public schools and concerns over affordability centerpieces of her campaign. She has called Mr. Abbott’s $1 billion program to help parents pay for private school a “scam.”
If elected, she said, she would push for legislation to authorize $1,500 checks for every household, paid for out of the state’s rainy-day fund. (The state’s account holds a record balance of about $27 billion.)
She also opposed the growth of data centers in Texas, an issue that has rocketed up the priority list for voters from both parties. She is skeptical of Mr. Abbott’s recent order to pause the approval of such centers until the state conducts an audit to study how much water and energy the centers require to operate.
“If he wanted to protect people from data centers, he would call a special session today until we can pass laws and have real protections in place for people,” she said, adding that that was something she would do as governor.
Her message resonated with Adelfa Reyna, a retired teacher from San Antonio. “We could see the first-ever Latina governor of Texas,” Ms. Reyna said. “Republicans have had control of the state for 30 years, and Abbott has been governor for 12. It’s time for change.”
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