{"id":112038,"date":"2026-01-06T00:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/112038\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T00:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:26:10","slug":"houston-businessman-andrew-white-drops-bid-for-texas-governor-endorses-fellow-democrat-gina-hinojosa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/112038\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston businessman Andrew White drops bid for Texas governor, endorses fellow Democrat Gina Hinojosa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Houston businessman Andrew White on Monday dropped his Democratic bid for governor and endorsed state Rep. Gina Hinojosa to take on Gov. Greg Abbott in November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWith the primary just weeks away, the responsible choice is to come together to defeat Greg Abbott and protect our schools, hospitals and infrastructure,\u201d White said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019m proud to endorse Gina Hinojosa for governor, and I look forward to voting for her twice: once in March and again in November.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">White, the son of former Texas Gov. Mark White, had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2025\/09\/24\/andrew-white-texas-governor-democrat-primary-greg-abbott\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pledged to run<\/a> as an independent-minded Democrat and unite Texans across the political spectrum. His departure leaves Hinojosa, former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell and retired firefighter and rancher Bobby Cole in the race, among others. It also marks White\u2019s second unsuccessful run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, after he lost in a runoff in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">White said in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/andrewwhite4tx\/status\/2008274805519511863\" rel=\"nofollow\">a video<\/a> on social media that his campaign hadn\u2019t raised enough money to be successful, despite internal polling placing him second in the nine-person race. He had pledged to personally cover the overhead expenses of his campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cInstead of fighting this fight against Gina, I think it\u2019s better for me to step aside and Gina save her resources so she can beat Greg Abbott in November,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Public polling by Texas Southern University from mid-December found that 41% of likely Democratic primary voters planned to support Hinojosa, with 6% going for White, 5% for Bell and 6% for other candidates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Hinojosa said in a statement that she was \u201cincredibly grateful to Andrew White for his leadership and for this show of support.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cIt takes incredible courage to enter the ring and run for statewide office in Texas, and it takes even more to step down when you know what\u2019s at stake,\u201d Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston businessman Andrew White on Monday dropped his Democratic bid for governor and endorsed state Rep. Gina Hinojosa&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2137,288,5053,392,56,58,57,287,1564,293],"class_list":{"0":"post-112038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-governors-office","11":"tag-greg-abbott","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-headlines","14":"tag-houston-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-state-government","17":"tag-texas-legislature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}