Democratic candidate for governor Gina Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
MURPHY – For much of her campaign for governor, Gina Hinojosa says most Texans didn’t know who she was.
Months of crisscrossing Texas has changed that. The Democratic state representative says she is finally getting the recognition needed to take on Gov. Greg Abbott.
“We still have people to reach, and I have no doubt that we’ll do it,” she said.
Article continues below this ad
Now she’s trying to turn that into votes against a three-term Republican with a political fund topping $100 million. Her pitch: Texans are paying more while wealthy donors and corporate interests profit from Abbott’s policies.
In a joint interview with The Dallas Morning News and NBC 5 that aired Sunday, Hinojosa pointed to electricity disconnections, bankruptcies and uninsured children as evidence of what she called Abbott’s failures.
“That is Greg Abbott’s record,” she said at an ice cream shop in Murphy, northeast of Dallas in Collin County. “He owns it because he’s been doing the bidding of the money interests and not making it in Texas.”
Hinojosa said her “Secure the American Dream” agenda would include a $1,500 payment to Texas households, greater access to healthcare, protections against surprise medical billing, electricity rate controls and property tax cuts.
Abbott has rejected her criticism and sought to turn the affordability argument against Hinojosa, accusing her of supporting higher taxes in the Legislature.
Article continues below this ad
His campaign also has called her “soft on crime,” citing votes against Rio Grande barriers and her absence from a vote to deny bail to immigrants in the country without authorization who commit serious crimes.
With early voting in two weeks, the fight has intensified on television.
Abbott is spending $12 million on an ad accusing Hinojosa of voting 40 times to raise property taxes.
Hinojosa disputes that characterization and recently sent cease-and-desist letters to stations airing the ad, demanding they stop running it and retract or correct what her attorneys called false and defamatory claims.
Abbott’s campaign and legal teams defended the ad as accurate.
Article continues below this ad
Closing the gap
The governor’s race wasn’t expected to be much of a contest.
Abbott entered the year seeking an unprecedented fourth term with a massive financial advantage, while Hinojosa was seen as a long shot, little known outside her Austin legislative district.
But Hinojosa said she has gained ground as Democrats have become more competitive, led by state Rep. James Talarico’s run for the Senate against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Abbott has responded by spending heavily to define his opponent as a liberal out of step with Texas. He has dismissed signs of a tightening race, saying “polls don’t win elections, and polls are often wrong.”
Article continues below this ad
Hinojosa said Abbott had spent $39 million on paid communications, compared with $3 million by her campaign.
“The more money he spends, the better I do,” she said.
Hinojosa said Texans have grown tired of Abbott. “People know who he is. They know what he is about, and that is his problem,” she said.
In the interview with Lone Star Politics, Hinojosa derided Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, the multibillion-dollar state effort that deployed National Guard troops and state police to the Texas-Mexico border, as “grandstanding.” But she stopped short of saying whether she would end it as governor.
Instead, she noted her work with federal officials in December 2023 after they temporarily closed rail crossings in Eagle Pass and El Paso during a surge in migrants arriving at the border.
Article continues below this ad
“That was not a dog and pony show. That was not spending billions of taxpayer dollars like Greg Abbott has done on Operation Lone Star. It was actually talking to people to get things done, and crossings plummeted after that happened,” she said.
Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican seeking his fourth term.
2023 File Photo/The Associated Press
The program, produced by NBC 5 and The News, has invited Abbott but has received no response.
School agenda
Hinojosa has made public education a centerpiece of her campaign, slamming Abbott’s $1 billion private school voucher program.
Article continues below this ad
She said he championed that program after receiving millions in political donations from a wealthy out-of-state voucher supporter, calling it an example of rewarding wealthy backers at taxpayers’ expense.
Abbott has rejected that, saying the program expands school choice and gives parents more control over their children’s education.
On other education issues, Hinojosa said she would audit Texas Education Agency vendor contracts, consider four-day school weeks, increase teacher pay and redirect funding from Abbott’s $1 billion private school voucher program to public schools and prekindergarten.
“This is not a Democratic agenda. It was the agenda of Texas and the country once upon a time,” she said. “We need to make it our agenda again. We do that by saving Texas schools and putting money in your pocket.”
Data center divide
Hinojosa also is trying to draw a contrast with Abbott over the surge of data centers.
She supports new safeguards for communities where the facilities are being built and defended a 2017 vote to let contractor jobs count toward employment requirements for data centers receiving tax incentives. She said the change was intended to benefit contractors using American union labor.
She said that was narrower than Abbott’s tax-break policies, which she blamed for data centers “descending upon Texas,” especially in rural areas. In 2015, Abbott signed a law creating a 20-year state sales-tax exemption for qualifying large data center projects, including electricity, servers and cooling equipment.
Hinojosa said he should call lawmakers back to Austin to pass stronger data center regulations “to protect people.”
Abbott once promoted Texas as a destination for data centers but has since moved to rein in the industry. He recently halted new state permits while regulators audit proposed projects’ electricity and water use.