For the first time this election cycle, Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa edged ahead of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in a nonpartisan poll, a shift journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez argued Monday came from Hinojosa targeting her opponent's "self-inflicted wound."
Conducted by ReconMR and published last week, the poll showed Hinojosa — a progressive Texas state House member — leading Abbott by 4 points. Among independents, her lead was overwhelming, with 65% of independent respondents favoring Hinojosa to Abbott’s 27%. Directionally, the poll also showed Hinojosa having made significant gains since it was last conducted in July.
The secret to Hinojosa’s growing momentum, Valdes-Rodriguez argued in an analysis published on her Substack Monday, was her seizing on an apparent weak spot of Abbott’s: education.
“A year ago, when Gina Hinojosa launched her campaign, I made the case that she was the candidate who could actually do it,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.
“A public-school mom who got into politics because her son’s elementary school was closing due to privatization of public education under Abbott, running straight at Abbott’s most self-inflicted wound: the school vouchers he forced through against the will of his own rural and suburban base. Affordability and schools are precisely the issues on which this week’s poll shows Texans breaking her way.”
Making Hinojosa’s new lead against Abbott even more “notable,” Valdes-Rodriguez argued, was the “sheer financial mismatch” between the two candidates.
Abbott entered his re-election bid with a $105 million war chest, and according to Texas Ethics Commission data, his campaign made more than $54 million in expenditures as of July 15. Hinojosa’s campaign made less than $4 million.
Nevertheless, Valdes-Rodriguez warned Hinojosa that she would still face an uphill battle in her bid for governor, despite her newfound lead.
“Democrats have history working against them. The party has not won a Texas gubernatorial election since 1990, when Ann Richards captured the office,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.
“And Texas voters remain skeptical of the viability of the shift the poll suggests, likely due to longstanding blatant corruption in the state’s Republican party: even as they narrowly favored Hinojosa, 62 percent said they expected Abbott to win, and nearly a third of Hinojosa’s own supporters believed he would ultimately prevail.”