BROWNSVILLE — The chant started before Gina Hinojosa reached the mic. In a tight downtown room packed with more than a hundred family members and friends, the Austin lawmaker’s supporters shouted “No te dejes!” as she made it official: she’s running for governor.

The Spanish phrase — a family refrain Hinojosa says she grew up hearing — doesn’t translate neatly. “It is a combination of ‘Fight back’ and ‘Don’t let yourself be pushed around,’” she told the Austin Chronicle. “It is something my grandmother always said to me, and it was like a tough-love statement, almost like a scold: ‘No te dejes!’ – ‘Know your worth, and defend it!’”

Her message is pointed at one person in particular: Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking an unprecedented fourth term in 2026, a race that could make him the state’s longest-serving governor, according to Wikipedia.

Brownsville announcement

Hinojosa, a Democrat and education advocate who represents Austin in the Texas House, wasted no time defining the stakes. “He is the most corrupt governor in Texas history,” she said of Abbott. “Time and time again, he will prioritize corporate interests, corporate greed, over the people of Texas. He’s got a record that speaks for itself, and I’ll be speaking about it a lot,” she told the Austin Chronicle.

The first week of her campaign has centered on ethics and schools, themes that have long animated her political life. Backers say the mix offers a sharp, values-based contrast with Abbott and the policies he’s championed at the Capitol.

The corruption argument

Months before her launch, Hinojosa pointed to findings by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen that since 2020 Abbott has repeatedly invoked emergency powers to bypass competitive bidding and steer noncompetitive contracts worth nearly $1 billion — with companies tied to roughly $3 million in donations to his campaign committee. As the report summarized: “We identified eight companies that received non-competitive, emergency contracts from the state… In each instance, a company, its owners, or its executives donated large amounts to Gov. Abbott through his Texans for Greg Abbott PAC,” according to Public Citizen as described by the Austin Chronicle.

The executives identified by Public Citizen did not include Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, who gave Abbott a record-setting $12 million last year as the governor pressed hard for a private school voucher program. Hinojosa has criticized Abbott for accepting the donation. She is also criticizing Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock for awarding a $50 million contract to Odyssey — a tech firm that received a $500,000 prize from Yass in 2023 — to oversee the voucher program. “It is a grift,” Hinojosa told a CBS reporter. “It is a way to pad the pockets of the well-connected.”

A precise, independent tally of noncompetitive emergency contracts is not publicly compiled; analysts note that verifying the full amount would require contract-level procurement records and audits. Even so, the money-in-politics backdrop is unmistakable: corporate political spending into state-level groups and officials has surged over the past decade, as reported by Reuters. That broader trend helps explain why Hinojosa is wagering that Texans will respond to a corruption-and-accountability appeal tethered to kitchen-table concerns like school funding.

Why education is the through line

Hinojosa’s political origin story runs through Austin’s classrooms. In 2012, when a charter operator moved to take over her son’s campus, Pease Elementary, she jumped into the fight, won a seat on the Austin ISD board, and voted to stop the takeover. Four years later, Austin voters sent her to the Texas House, where she served on the Public Education Committee and built a reputation as a policy-driven defender of neighborhood schools, according to the Austin Chronicle.

“Her fierce advocacy provides a sharp contrast to Abbott’s legacy of shortchanging and privatizing our public education system,” state Rep. Donna Howard said in endorsing her, the Austin Chronicle reported.

The policy backdrop is in flux. State leaders have boosted some funding lines and pay initiatives while also expanding “school choice” options, including charter growth and a push for vouchers — changes that remain hotly debated for their impact on public schools, according to the Texas Education Agency. Hinojosa’s case to voters is that these fights are not abstract: they shape class sizes, teacher retention, and the basic promise of a public education system in a state adding hundreds of thousands of residents each year.

The political reality

For all the launch-week energy, the math remains daunting. Abbott enters the cycle with a massive war chest — about $87 million — while Hinojosa reported just $72,000 on hand, according to the Austin Chronicle. She is blunt about the imbalance. “We’re campaigning on that,” she said. “I mean, you don’t get that kind of campaign cash doing the bidding of the people. Abbott has that amount of campaign money because he is corrupt. So he can keep his dirty money, and we’ll get the people of Texas on our side,” she told the Austin Chronicle.

Strategists say the path for an underfunded challenger runs through small-dollar fundraising, rigorous documentation of ethics claims, and relentless on-the-ground organizing — particularly bilingual outreach in metro suburbs and South Texas. That approach aligns with demographic reality: Texas is one of the nation’s most diverse states, with Hispanic residents comprising roughly 39% of the population and non-Hispanic white Texans about 42%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Pairing that coalition politics with clear, detailed education proposals and public-records-backed evidence of contracting abuses is the playbook analysts suggest, informed by spending trends reported by Reuters and the state’s demographic profile.

Endorsements and early coalition-building

Hinojosa’s team is leaning on a roster of Democratic supporters to jump-start name recognition and fundraising. Among those backing her, according to the Austin Chronicle:

  • U.S. Reps. Lloyd Doggett, Greg Casar, and Jasmine Crockett
  • State Sens. Sarah Eckhardt and Roland Gutierrez
  • State Reps. Donna Howard, John Bucy, Erin Zwiener, and Mihaela Plesa

“I have tremendous admiration for Gina’s bravery and tenacity,” said Sen. Sarah Eckhardt. “From her time on the Austin school board through her tenure in the Legislature, she finds leverage and works it until she gets movement,” the Austin Chronicle reported.

She’ll first face rancher Bobby Cole and businessman Andrew White — son of former Gov. Mark White — in the Democratic primary next spring. The general election looms on November 3, 2026, per Wikipedia.

Veteran Austin strategist David Butts sees a contrast that could matter if Hinojosa builds a broad coalition. “She’s Abbott’s worst nightmare,” he said. “She’s younger, she’s got more energy, she’s a woman, and she’s Hispanic. And that appeals to a cross-section of the electorate that probably feels somewhat dumped on by Greg Abbott and his authoritarian ways,” according to the Austin Chronicle.

What comes next

Hinojosa’s Brownsville debut was equal parts biography and indictment, a portrait of an education-first lawmaker arguing that state power has been bent toward private gain. Her task now is to translate that charge into proof points and policy: lining up contract files and donor records, sharpening her plan for school finance and teacher pay, and organizing the communities where “No te dejes” may resonate most.

Abbott’s incumbency, fundraising machine, and deep conservative base have made him formidable in three straight gubernatorial campaigns. Whether this race will be different will depend on whether Hinojosa’s promise — to fight back and not be pushed around — becomes something more than a chant and coheres into a statewide coalition by next November.