Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican Greg Abbott in Texas’s November 3, 2026, governor’s race, ending a Republican hold on the office that began in 1995. She will be the state’s first Latina governor and the first Democrat elected to the post since Ann Richards in 1990.

The result changes who leads Texas, but not the balance in its legislature: Republicans retained their majority. Hinojosa, a 52-year-old state representative and labor lawyer from Austin, now faces a state government where the governorship and legislature will be held by different parties.

Costs, schools and data centers shaped the campaign

Hinojosa made public schools and household finances central to her campaign. She also focused on data centers, facilities that house computer servers and consume large amounts of energy. She accused Abbott of allowing them to multiply in Texas and argued that his policies favored wealthy interests over ordinary residents.

Abbott responded to public discontent with a temporary moratorium on approving new data centers, according to the Los Angeles Times. The two positions put the issue in sharp focus: Hinojosa criticized the pace of expansion, while Abbott’s move temporarily paused approvals. The sources do not establish how long the moratorium will last or what policy Hinojosa will pursue as governor.

Hinojosa also proposed a one-time payment of $1,500 to each of nearly 32 million Texas residents, which she said would come from the state’s emergency reserve. She accused Abbott of failing to reduce the cost of living. Abbott, in turn, said she wanted to raise taxes and called her a radical and a threat to Texans’ way of life.

A historic win despite a spending gap

Hinojosa entered the race with fewer financial resources, but reported spending figures cover different measures. The Texas Tribune reported that, before the vote, Abbott spent nearly $118 million on advertising, compared with $26 million for Hinojosa. The Los Angeles Times separately reported that Abbott’s campaign had spent $180 million since the previous year. Those totals should not be read as a direct comparison: one account concerns advertising before the vote, while the other covers campaign spending over a longer period.

Hinojosa represents an Austin district and is serving her fifth term in the state House. She entered politics after running for the Austin school board in 2012. Her campaign sought to draw Latino voters’ attention to economic pressures and public schools rather than cultural issues, an approach that matched her emphasis on household costs.

What the result says about the electorate

Beatriz Lopez, executive director of Voto Latino, attributed Democratic victories in Texas to Latino turnout, citing affordability concerns and President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda as motivating issues. Voto Latino said it registered about 400,000 voters in Texas during the election cycle. That is the organization’s account of the result; the available information does not provide a final vote margin or establish how much any single issue affected the outcome.

The change is historic, but the Republican majority in the legislature remains. Hinojosa’s election therefore puts a Democratic governor in office alongside a legislature still controlled by Republicans, while the state’s future decisions on schools, costs and data centers remain to be seen.