Gina Hinojosa

Gina Hinojosa, who in 2026 became the first Hispanic person elected as governor of Texas and the first woman elected to that role since 1990, likes to say she never saw herself getting into politics. But the Texas native, whose résumé includes being a civil rights and labor attorney, a school board member, and a state legislator, also has deep political roots. All of that, combined with near-historic anti-Republican sentiment, catapulted the Democrat to a historic victory in the 2026 midterm elections.

Early life

Hinojosa was born and grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas with parents who were legal aid lawyers. Her father, Gilberto Hinojosa, was active in Democratic politics, becoming a judge and then the state Democratic Party chair in 2012. A third-generation Mexican American, Hinojosa attended Texas public schools before receiving a bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. She then attended George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., where she received a law degree.

The beginnings of a political career

Hinojosa practiced labor law while raising her family in Austin, Texas. But in 2012, when one of her sons’ elementary schools was targeted for possible closure, Hinojosa ran for a seat on the Austin Independent School District board. She won that race and served on the board for four years, including one year as school board president.

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In 2016 she ran for the Texas House of Representatives, representing the diverse and liberal 49th district, in the area around Austin. She was reelected by wide margins in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024. During her time in the legislature, she continued to focus on education issues, including fighting against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher program. One of her colleagues in the Texas legislature was James Talarico. Despite a distinguished legislative career, Hinojosa lacked widespread name recognition when she made an announcement in October 2025: She was going to run for governor.

Race for Texas governor

The audacity—and seeming hubris—of the campaign was clear early on. Despite winning a resounding victory in the Democratic primary, in part because so few serious Democrats were inclined to enter the quixotic race, Hinojosa struggled to get statewide and national support for her campaign. She was running against the incumbent Republican Abbott, who had never lost an election in Texas. The state had not elected a Democrat since Ann Richards won the governorship in 1990. Plus, Democrats, who had flirted with success in Texas in races in recent cycles, had focused their attention on another state legislator seeking statewide office: Talarico.

Against the odds—and the massive campaign war chest of Abbott, who outspent Hinojosa by more than 4 to 1—she campaigned on the economy, for better public schools, and against artificial intelligence data centers. Her message seemed particularly to strike a chord among Latino voters, who had supported Pres. Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election in large numbers. Latinos make up the largest ethnic population in Texas. For his part, Abbott remained dismissive of her candidacy, refusing to debate her or even say her name on the campaign trail. But as the summer went on, and in part because of the energy generated by Talarico, her campaign gained momentum.

The Abbott campaign launched ads calling Hinojosa “radical” for her positions on transgender rights as well as taxes. She fired back, saying in her own ad that she was a populist who would fight for ordinary Texans:

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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. That’s the difference. I’m Gina Hinojosa. My pronouns are mom, Texan, and soon-to-be governor.

In the final weeks of the campaign, much of the conversation around Texas continued to focus on whether Talarico could claim a Senate seat, but Hinojosa was quietly gaining in the polls. Still, few could have foreseen the results in which Talarico won his seat by 12 points and Hinojosa by 7 points. The friends and state legislators whom Texas voters had just given huge promotions celebrated their victories together, over sodas at a Texas institution, Whataburger.