{"id":449809,"date":"2026-09-28T03:50:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449809\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T03:50:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:50:48","slug":"ut-state-representative-discusses-culture-wars-populism-in-race-for-governor-the-daily-texan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449809\/","title":{"rendered":"UT state representative discusses \u2018culture wars,\u2019 populism in race for governor \u2013 The Daily Texan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"9-24-26_TribFestGinaHinojosa_AtyannaSiller-2\"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFrom left, Kayla Guo, Texas Tribune politics reporter, and Gina Hinojosa, Democratic nominee for Texas Governor, stand before the crowd as they cheer following Hinojosa’s entrance at The Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24, 2026.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Democratic nominee for Texas governor, spoke about her politics and campaign strategy in a one-on-one discussion at TribFest, the Texas Tribune\u2019s annual journalism convention, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

During her hour-long interview with the Tribune, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa expressed support for a populist platform that would unite the public interest to focus on affordability and the economy, beyond \u201cculture war\u201d topics and online discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have divided ourselves into these tribal camps and fought these culture wars, and meanwhile, the only people who have won are, like, 15 billionaire tech dudes who are amassing all our money, all our power, all our data and are about to blow up the world\u201d Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n

Hinojosa described her positive interactions with voters on both sides of the political spectrum, arguing that her opponent, the incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, sold out his mostly rural base in favor of \u201cthe moneyed interest,\u201d such as developers and tech companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are looking for a way to move on,\u201d Hinojosa said. \u201cThe future feels very scary for so many Texans, and so it\u2019s just created this opportunity for us to come together. And I do feel like it is a watershed moment, almost a postpartisan moment, where 99% of us are in the same boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hinojosa has served as a representative in the Texas House of Representatives since 2017. The district she represents contains much of central and downtown Austin, including the University.<\/p>\n

In response to an audience question regarding recent racist remarks from online commentators, including statewide candidate Bo French, who posted controversial social media posts<\/a> with a photo featuring non-white students, Hinojosa offered a different answer to the \u201cculture war\u201d debate.<\/p>\n

When asked if she considered herself a progressive, Hinojosa rejected the label, instead opting to refer to herself as an \u201ceconomic populist.\u201d Pointing to her background as a labor lawyer and state representative, she said that as governor she would continue her aim of putting workers\u2019 rights and the public at the center of her agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t changed who I am, or really what I\u2019ve been about,\u201d Hinojosa said. \u201cWe just have, I think, now a different understanding of what\u2019s been happening all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left, Kayla Guo, Texas Tribune politics reporter, and Gina Hinojosa, Democratic nominee for Texas Governor, stand before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-449809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449809","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=449809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}