The polls in Texas show a close race between Governor Greg Abbbott and challenger Gina Hinojosa. Abbott has about $91.5 million in campaign funds, Hinojosa has about $21.7 million.

Abbott’s single biggest donor is S. Javaid Anwar, who has given $4,122,086. Anwar is Muslim but supports Abbott despite the Governor’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. Abbott’s top five donors have each donated at least $2 million.

Hinojosa’s biggest donor is the American Federation of Teachers, which appreciates Hinojosa’s strong support for public schools and teachers. The AFT has contributed $345,000.

Abbott is running for his fourth term. Abbott is a hard-hearted MAGA man. He is the favorite of billionaires in Texas and beyond.

Gina is the only candidate in the nation running for governor who has made public schools her number 1 issue. She has pledged to fire Abbott’s State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath and to roll back the billion-dollar “voucher scam.”

Abbott and Hinojosa are one point apart in the polls, a statistical tie.

A few days ago, the biggest newspaper in the state–The Houston Chronicle–endorsed Hinojosa.

The Houston Chronicle said:

Here is the full editorial:

In February, when state Rep. Gina Hinojosa visited the Chronicle editorial board as one of six Democrats who imagined themselves taking up residence in the Governor’s Mansion, we were impressed but saw little reason for Gov. Greg Abbott to worry. What we saw in Hinojosa was a capable, experienced lawmaker with a passion for public education, clearly the best candidate among the six but with little name recognition beyond her Austin district. An even more daunting prospect if she happened to prevail in the primary would be campaigning in the general election under the Everest-sized shadow of a $106 million war chest the governor could avalanche onto her effort if he needed to. 

We didn’t think he’d need to. In Abbott’s quest for an unprecedented fourth term, we expected Hinojosa to be the next in a line of hapless Democrats willing to take one for the party. Hinojosa herself acknowledged that she decided to run for governor only after it became obvious that none of her fellow Democrats were willing to offer themselves up for the quadrennial double-digit beat-down the party has endured for more than three decades. If the ebullient, well-known and well-funded Beto O’Rourke couldn’t come within single digits of Abbott four years ago, why would Texans expect an earnest, relatively low-key unknown to do any better? 

For Governor: Gina Hinojosa

Gina Hinojosa ★★★★ — This Democratic challenger and five-term state representative is running one of the most impressive populist campaigns anywhere in the country. She’s fighting to put everyday Texans back in charge.

Greg Abbott  ★★1/2 — After 12 years as governor, this Republican incumbent seems to care only about billionaire donors and partisan extremists.

When Hinojosa visited the editorial board a few weeks ago, the descriptor “low-key” didn’t come to mind. She made a full-throated, confident call for change. As with her Democratic cohort, the now-nationally known U.S. Senate candidate, James Talarico, her campaign is riding a wave of Trump fatigue and economic angst that has spread nationwide like algae in a reflecting pool. The success of her populist economic message — and the fact that Abbott finally deigned to mention her name only recently — suggests that fiery-red Texas might be slipping toward something closer to crimson, or even purple, on the political color spectrum. Despite the incumbent governor’s advantages — money and name recognition, primarily — the 52-year-old Rio Grande Valley native and five-term House member is within striking distance in most polls.

And it’s not just Hinojosa who has changed: There’s also Abbott himself. The GOP candidate Texans first met way back in the mid-’90s when he ran for district judge here in Houston, the office-holder we got to know through his successful campaigns for the Texas Supreme Court, attorney general and three terms as governor, has transmogrified. In the three decades Abbott has held public office, the seemingly moderate, Bush-era Republican — who even attracted Democratic votes when he ran for the state Supreme Court — has become a relentless, hardcore MAGA standard-bearer. This is the governor whose billion-dollar border boondoggle, Operation Lone Star, pleased the true believers but did nothing to resolve the nation’s immigration remorse. The governor who, in the pursuit of absolute and centralized power, trashed any notion of “local control,” long a Republican value. The governor who sneers at urban Texas, including Harris County, despite its function as the economic engine of a growing state. 

Perhaps that’s the type of pol he has always been, but he has no interest in disguising it now, as he seeks a fourth term as governor (and perhaps a launching pad for the presidency).

But the biggest change of all — bigger than any individual candidate — is happening all over Texas, where Republicans have dominated statewide elections for the past 30 years.  Like a barnacled Moby Dick, parties in power too long grow tired, weighted down, ineffective. Poked and prodded by unrelenting schools of special-interest pilot fish, they lose a sense of a larger public-service mission.  They may be politically dominant, but in fact they’re netted and enmeshed by the privileged and powerful. Like an unfree Willy, they come to feel they have no choice but to acquiesce, even as they seek to distract the citizenry with trivialities. (The Furries Act, anyone?) In an ocean of new ideas, new directions and unfamiliar challenges, they founder. 

“I will tell you that with 30 years of Democratic rule, it would probably be just as corrupt,” Hinojosa said. “That’s what happens when you have one-party control for so long.” 

Those of a certain age will remember the Sharpstown scandal that hastened the demise of Texas Democrats. Now, after decades of near-total dominance by Republicans, a dozen years under one governor, it’s time for a change.

We had an opening question for the candidate who seeks to forge a new approach for the state: Why would we change leadership given how much Texas is growing, how strong our economy is and, overall, how well things are going?

We found Hinojosa’s answer compelling: “That narrative does not match the experience of everyday Texans. Despite the fact that Texans work more hours  than the national average, we have the most people without health insurance, we have the most children without health insurance of any state, we have the most people being disconnected from their electricity because they can’t afford to pay their bills, despite the fact that we are the energy powerhouse of this country. We have the most bankruptcies of any state in the union, and that is affecting our small businesses in a big way. Small businesses are really struggling to keep their doors open, and all this despite the fact that our property taxes have skyrocketed under Greg Abbott.”

Hinojosa has a name for those economic burdens those bankrupt businesses and everyday Texans carry constantly. She calls it “the Greg Abbott corruption tax.” 

We prefer a Watergate-era cliche: “Follow the money.” Billionaires seem to have an outsized influence on Abbott’s governing priorities. Consider natural gas tycoon Kelcy Warren, whose Energy Transfer vacuumed up $2.5 billion during devastating Winter Storm Uri in 2021. When Abbott showed little interest in determining how the gas industry managed to collect $11 billion in profit during the ensuing blackouts, the Dallas billionaire conveniently showed his appreciation with a $1 million contribution to the governor’s campaign coffers.

Or consider billionaire school-voucher zealot Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania, who donated $12 million to Abbott in apparent appreciation of his unrelenting efforts to establish a billion-dollar school voucher program. The governor got his money from Yass and other political extremists, such as the billionaire Wilks brothers of Cisco, Texas, but public schools, particularly those in rural Texas, lost out: The program siphons much-needed money away from them and into private schools.

Or consider, more recently, AI tech billionairesgetting all manner of tax goodies from our governor — to the tune of $1 billion per year — as gigantic data centers sprawl across acres and acres of the Lone Star State.   

Of course, Abbott isn’t the only governor — Democrat and Republican — who fell hard for data centers. He’s also not the only governor who suddenly feels compelled to respond to the growing rumble of unrest. He can’t help but notice that much of the opposition is coming from rural and small-town Texans, likely Abbott/Trump supporters who have legitimate concerns about water and energy use, incessant noise just across the fence line from their properties, or simply a desire to have some local control over their own communities. 

The growing grassroots fury at elected officials who initially ignored their concerns is democracy in action. We expect that a respect for a government of, by and for the people of Texas, a respect for their needs and concerns, would be the fundamental governing principle in a Hinojosa administration. 

Priorities for what Hinojosa calls her “economic populist agenda” include firing Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath “and putting an educator in that position;” freezing electricity rates and insisting that corporations and industry — including data centers — pay their fair share; and making sure that every Texas child has access to quality healthcare. 

Her most surprising priority is to write a check for $1,500 for every Texas household. The money would come from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, now at $27 billion, although in recent history it’s been closer to $10 billion. 

“The economists we talk to say it’s so irresponsible to have $27 billion hoarded in Austin,” Hinojosa said. “That money belongs in the economy, working for the economy, especially at a time when working Texans are really struggling. Not only that, but people don’t believe that government can do anything to make their lives easier.”

We asked how a $1,500 check for every Texas household differs from Trump’s proposal to send every American household a check for $5,000. 

“We have the money,” Hinojosa said — wryly, but also accurately.

An offhand remark as Hinojosa prepared to leave the editorial board meeting stayed with us. “I think people are tired of fighting,” she said. 

We agree. After a dozen years under the leadership of a governor keenly attuned to the needs of the privileged and the powerful, we look forward to a successor dedicated to serving her fellow Texans. 

As a lawmaker, Hinojosa has proven herself to be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful public servant, one who has realized during her decade in office that if she was going to get anything done, she had to work with the opposition, not divide and denigrate. We’re confident she’ll be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful governor. Gina Hinojosa has our wholehearted endorsement.