Three decades of Republican control of the Texas governorship ended tonight, with NBC News projecting that Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa has unseated Gov. Greg Abbott — making her the first Democrat to win the office since 1995 and the first Hispanic governor in Texas history.
Abbott Outspent Gina Hinojosa by Millions
Abbott, a three-term incumbent who could have become the state’s longest-serving governor with another win, entered the race as the heavy favorite after outspending Hinojosa by tens of millions of dollars. In a state that has voted ruby-red for decades, he looked nearly unbeatable early on.
But the ground moved underneath him. A changing Texas electorate and a worsening political climate for Republicans nationally — compounded in-state by GOP candidates for multiple offices bogged down in personal scandals and public criticism — eventually caught up with Abbott, too.
Hinojosa’s rise began in the Rio Grande Valley, where she was born and raised. Before winning her Texas House seat in 2016, she worked as a civil rights and labor lawyer. Education became her defining cause after she fought to stop her son’s elementary school from closing during state budget cuts — a battle she credits with pushing her into electoral politics. On the campaign trail, school funding and reform were centerpieces, including a summer pledge that one of her first acts as governor would be firing the state’s education commissioner over declining student performance across Texas.
Data Centers Hot Topic in Governor Race
Data centers gave her an unlikely opening with rural voters. Texas is now home to more than 500 data centers — the second-most in the nation — and local anger over the buildout has been intense, even in the rural counties Abbott had long carried easily. Abbott tried to defuse the issue in September, ordering a halt to new data center permits while the state studied their impact on the electrical grid. Hinojosa kept up the attack anyway, charging in ads that he was “doing the bidding of his billionaire donors” and “selling out Texas” by backing the projects.
A fluent Spanish speaker, she also made a sustained play for Latino voters — roughly a third of the Texas electorate — with bilingual TV ads and Spanish-language town halls.
Abbott’s campaign fought back with cultural attacks, hitting her past support for transgender girls in school sports and gender-affirming care for minors and tagging her “Gender Bender Gina” in campaign ads.
Her response became the signature line of the race. “They want to run an entire campaign saying that I’m too woke. I plan to spend an entire campaign focused on the fact that working people are too broke,” she said in one ad. “That’s the difference. I’m Gina Hinojosa. My pronouns are mom, Texan and soon-to-be governor.”
Voters never saw the two debate — Hinojosa attacked Abbott for ignoring her debate invitations and in mid-October staged a one-woman debate outside the Governor’s Mansion instead.
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