For the first time in more than three decades, a Texas Democrat is heading into November within striking distance of the governor's mansion — and this one would make history if she wins.
Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, 52, would flip the state's top office blue for the first time since 1990 and become the first Latina governor in Texas history.
Hinojosa, a five-term Austin lawmaker, is polling within the margin of error against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — a three-term incumbent who has never won reelection by fewer than 11 points. A Texas Pulse poll released Aug. 7 put the race at 46% to 45%, with Hinosija trailing.
Democrats in Texas have not won a statewide race since 1994, with the last Democratic governor elected in 1991. The state has also not backed a Democratic Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Former Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke came within 3 points of unseating U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2018 but lost by 11 points in 2022 against Abbott.
Kirby Goidel, the Texas A&M political science professor who helps direct the Texas Pulse poll, draws a distinction that frames the whole race.
"I don't see a lot of signs of Democratic strength, but I see a lot of signs of Democratic potential," Goidel said.
But polls tell only part of the story. Whether Hinojosa can distance herself from a national Democratic brand that has struggled in Texas and unite Texans around her agenda will determine whether the polling snapshot becomes a November result.
She has until Nov. 3 to convince Texans she is a better alternative to the party that has held their state for a generation.
Gina has deep ties to Texas and the state's Democratic Party, having been born in McAllen, Texas — a border city in the southernmost part of the state — to Gilberto and Cynthia Hinojosa.
Texans might recognize the name Gilberto Hinojosa, who served as chair of the state's Democratic Party from 2012 to 2025.
She grew up in Brownsville, another midsize city along the Texas-Mexico border, where she went through the public education system. After graduating from the University of Texas in Austin in 1996, she got a law degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC.
She married and worked as a civil rights lawyer in Austin — the famously liberal Texas state capital where her husband, John Donisi, is also an attorney.
In 2005, she was part of the legal team that sued then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on money laundering charges, according to her campaign.
Then, in 2012, her son's local public school faced closure.
"When it was threatened with school closure, I got mad, and I ran for the school board," Hinojosa told the Tacos of Texas podcast in an episode released in August.
She won and saved her son's school while preventing other schools in the district from closing as well — an issue Texas school districts face to this day — during her time on the board.
Then, in 2016, she decided to run for the Texas House, covering central Austin, on an education platform that ensures public schools are allocated the necessary resources to educate students across the state.
Hinojosa won in a seven-way Democratic primary and cruised to victory in the general election for an Austin-based state legislative seat in 2016.
During her time in the Texas House, she has served on several committees, including the Public Education and Land and Resource Management committees, and has authored bills focused on public education and government accountability.
As a Democrat in a Republican-controlled state, her bills rarely become law without a Republican co-sponsor or amendments and compromises. In 2019, according to her campaign, Hinojosa was a key Democratic negotiator on the largest school finance overhaul in a generation.
During the last legislative session in 2025, she also worked on successful bills that reduced the number of standardized tests Texas students take and barring charter schools from turning students away over their disciplinary records.
"I carry a strong track record of building coalitions, winning populist reforms, and challenging the status quo to make our state more fair and affordable for all Texans," Hinojosa told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, ahead of the March primaries.
She was also among the Democrats who broke quorum twice to prevent the House from passing Republican-backed legislation — in 2021 over an election bill that Democrats said would restrict voter access and Republicans said would secure elections, and in 2025 over a mid-decade redistricting that reduced the number of Democratic-leaning majority-minority districts at President Donald Trump's behest.
Like most Democrats nationwide, Hinojosa is running on addressing the cost-of-living crisis by lowering healthcare, grocery and utility costs. She promises to send Texas households a $1,500 check drawn from the state's rainy-day fund if she wins in November, while Republicans say they want to cut property taxes instead.
Joshua Blank, the research director at the University of Texas Politics Project, said his polling has consistently found a majority — and usually more than two-thirds — of Texans very concerned about the cost of everyday goods, housing and health care.
"Texas Republicans cannot campaign on the strength of the economy right now, and so that's another major issue that they have to take off the table, given that people are concerned about prices and affordability," Blank said
Hinojosa would also continue her education agenda of moving away from standardized tests, halting state takeovers of local school districts, and repealing the school voucher program Abbott signed into law in 2025 in its entirety.
She has also grown increasingly vocal against data centers, as it has become the rare issue that is uniting Texas voters across party lines — with rural conservatives and urban progressives both worried about the strain data centers put on the electrical grid, water resources and rising utility bills.
"Data centers are a big issue in rural Texas, and rural Texas votes overwhelmingly for Republican candidates," Blank said.
While Hinojosa may be trying to cut into Abbott's support with her opposition to data centers, Abbott is not attacking her directly − although when she first joined the race in October, Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder called Hinojosa "out of step with Texans."
In an August campaign ad, Abbott said he is working to "make sure the Democrat socialist policies will never take root in the state of Texas."
Texas has had only two women governors in its history — Miriam "Ma" Ferguson and Ann Richards — both Democrats.
Ferguson was the first female governor of Texas, serving as the state's 29th governor from 1925 to 1927 and 32nd governor from 1933 to 1935. She was elected as a proxy for her husband, former Gov. James "Pa" Ferguson, who had been impeached and barred from holding office.
Richards was the last woman and a Democrat elected governor, serving from 1991 to 1995.
Since Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836 and became a state in 1845, it has not elected a person of Hispanic descent to serve as its chief executive.
If elected, Hinojosa would be the first.
Democrats have lost to Abbott with nominees Wendy Davis in 2014, Lupe Valdez in 2018 and O'Rourke in 2022.
Since the March primaries, Hinojosa has kept the race within single digits. The Aug. 7 poll that showed her just a point behind Abbott represented a 5-point shift from Texas Pulse's June poll, which showed Abbott at 49% and Hinojosa at 43%. An Aug. 4 poll from Texas Southern University showed Abbott (49%) leading Hinojosa (43%) by 6 points.
A July 28 poll from Texas Public Opinion Research showed Hinojosa trailing Republican Abbott by 3 points. While June polling from the New York Times and the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project showed Abbott up by seven points.
In a sign that national Democrats think Texas is within reach, President Barack Obama visited Austin in May to campaign for Hinojosa and state Sen. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate who is leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in an Aug. 27 poll from Texas Public Opinion Research.
Goidel of Texas A&M said this year the national political climate is more favorable to Democrats than usual, because of Trump's low approval ratings.
"If you're looking for trying to hold someone accountable for the state of the economy, for the war in Iran, for the overall political climate, Republicans are in control," Goidel said.
But Abbott has wider name recognition and a massive fundraising advantage.
"It's hard to win an election when a third of the voters don't know who you are, so you have to become known," Goidel said.
"That also means defining yourself in favorable terms and in terms that can make you an electable statewide candidate," Goidel said, noting that Texas is "a conservative state."
Hinojosa seems to be introducing herself to Texas voters with that in mind. A new campaign ad tells the story of her first pregnancy, which she carried to term despite a fetal abnormality that guaranteed her child wouldn't live. The ad ends with her referring to her policy vision − which does not include any mention of her support for abortion rights − as "my prayer for Texas."
On the other side, Goidel said Republicans will try to define Hinojosa more negatively, since Election Day is still months away.
Despite signs of life in the Texas Democratic Party, many voters in the state perceive the party as too liberal, due to social issues and immigration.
"As ripe as this situation is for Democrats, it's still the case that most voters in Texas hold negative views of the Democratic Party, and even with these advantages, they're still trailing in the polls before these same Republicans unleash their significant campaign war chests," Blank said.
Mateo Rosiles is the Texas Connect reporter for USA TODAY and its regional papers in Texas. Got a news tip for him? Email him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gina Hinojosa could be Texas' first Latina governor. Here's her story