{"id":327247,"date":"2026-06-08T07:38:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T07:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/327247\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T07:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T07:38:48","slug":"democrat-gina-hinojosa-launches-first-ad-of-texas-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/327247\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat Gina Hinojosa launches first ad of Texas governor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa<\/a>, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, is launching her first ad buy of the general election with a digital spot to be aired during the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n

The initial spend comes in at five figures, according to Hinojosa\u2019s campaign, which declined to provide a more specific sum. A campaign spokesperson said Hinojosa planned to drop as much as needed to max out her ad time on all ESPN+ NBA Finals streaming content for the duration of the series. <\/p>\n

The Austin Democrat is facing off against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>, a formidable three-term incumbent with a staggering $96 million war chest as of February. Hinojosa\u2019s ad buy is the first by either gubernatorial candidate since they secured their respective party nominations on March 3. In TV interviews and campaign appearances, Abbott so far has trained his fire at state Rep. James Talarico<\/a>, the U.S. Senate nominee atop the Democratic ticket, while hardly, if ever, mentioning his opponent.<\/p>\n

Hinojosa\u2019s campaign refrain, echoed in the ad, accuses Abbott of selling out Texans to the megadonors who\u2019ve helped fill his campaign coffers, leading Texans to pay what she dubs the \u201cAbbott corruption tax,\u201d in the form of higher everyday costs and underfunded public schools. The ad<\/a> depicts the governor as a basketball-playing string puppet, controlled by men in suits, who force him to commit \u201cturnover after turnover of our money to his donors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good time to be Team Texas, but Greg Abbott is not playing for us,\u201d Hinojosa says in narrating the spot. \u201cHe\u2019s coached by the corporations and billionaires that pay him off. So even when our team is winning, hardworking families across this state are losing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first game of the series \u2014\u00a0and the first time Hinojosa\u2019s ad will reach Texans \u2014\u00a0is on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m running for governor to defend our kids, drive down our energy bills and bench the billionaires who\u2019ve been running up the score on Texas families,\u201d Hinojosa says in the ad.<\/p>\n

Abbott has not responded to Hinojosa\u2019s attacks directly, but he has broadly denied<\/a> that the people who donate to his campaign get special treatment. He has also pushed back on Democrats and public education advocates who have criticized GOP leadership for not keeping pace with inflation<\/a> in funding the state\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas supports our public schools,\u201d Abbott wrote on social media during last year\u2019s legislative session, urging followers not to believe \u201cthe lies about public school funding\u201d amid a debate over his proposal for a school voucher program, which passed<\/a> along with an $8.5 billion school funding package<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hinojosa, a former school board president and leading critic of Abbott\u2019s voucher campaign, began the midterm race with far fewer resources to introduce herself to voters and spread her campaign message across the state\u2019s numerous and expensive media markets. As of late February, her campaign had $618,000 in the bank after raising $2.3 million over the previous eight months \u2014 a fundraising delta with Abbott that will likely persist through the fall. <\/p>\n

The NBA Finals ad buy reflects an effort to channel Hinojosa\u2019s more limited campaign dollars toward young male and Latino voters, audiences that the Democratic Party has struggled to connect with in recent cycles. ESPN has been the most-watched cable network by young men for decades, the Austin Democrat\u2019s campaign said, while the ESPN+ streaming platform in particular is \u201cone of the best ways to reach the male and Latino voters who\u2019ll decide this race \u2014 the hardest audiences to find on traditional channels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent polls<\/a> show Abbott leading Hinojosa, with Texas Southern University<\/a> finding the governor ahead by 6 percentage points in a survey fielded from late April through early May. Roughly a third of voters in that poll said they did not know enough about Hinojosa to have an opinion about her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5353,2133,3496,5053,392,2135,2349,2424,27,29,28,4687],"class_list":["post-327247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-campaign-finance","tag-democrats","tag-gina-hinojosa","tag-governors-office","tag-greg-abbott","tag-james-talarico","tag-money","tag-republicans","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-southern-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327247","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=327247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}