When Gina Hinojosa told the world that she was running for governor in Texas, many considered it a toast to the sun. Defeating Republican Greg Abbott in one of the quintessential conservative strongholds seemed like an impossible mission and a waste of time and money. Today, the triumph of her candidacy goes far beyond the historic nature of the fact that a Latina woman is going to govern Texas, the first to do so and the first Democrat to reach the position since 1990, 36 years ago. It is the sign of a paradigm shift that many have been waiting for for decades in the second largest state in the United States, both in area and population.
"The general opinion is that no one can beat Greg Abbott," Hinojosa said in an interview with The New York Times in September. Even so, he decided to try it because he did not see any other Democrat willing to do so, and although he started with good feelings weeks before reaching the polls, the million votes ahead of Abbott seem like a mirage, a blue miracle that almost no one counted on.
Hinojosa, 52, has achieved it with one-eighth of what his powerful rival allocated to the campaign: 36.8 million dollars compared to the 281 million of a man who until now had never lost an electoral battle as governor and who had been in office for 12 years. Much of it has been a vote to punish Abbott and Trumpism for the current economic situation and high gasoline prices. But the other factor is attributable to Hinojosa and his strategy of installing himself in a more populist than progressive profile so as not to scare away undecided voters.
Born in McAllen, Texas, in 1973, Hinojosa grew up in Brownsville, just a stone's throw from the border, and learned politics at home. She is the daughter of Gilberto Hinojosa, also a politician. With a degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a JD from George Washington University, she began as a civil rights lawyer, defending union members, and in 2005 she was part of the legal team that sued Tom DeLay.
Her leap into public life came through education, the cause that still defines her. After four years on the Austin school board, he won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 2016, which he has held since 2017. There he has become a scourge of school vouchers and STAAR state exams, and one of the faces of the Democratic plans in 2021, against voting restrictions, and in 2025, against the new electoral map. The latter earned him a lawsuit to remove her, which was dismissed in May.
She announced her candidacy for governor in October 2025 and won the primary in March with a campaign against what she calls Austin corruption. He promises to send $1,500 checks to Texas households, suspend the state's gas tax and halt data center construction. Married and mother of two children, Hinojosa has made history in capital letters in a state that has finally worked a miracle for the Democrats, even if it was in a mid-term election.
Georgia makes Keisha Lance Bottoms the first black female governor of the US
To understand what happened tonight in Georgia, we must go back to 1868, when the state's first 33 black legislators took their seats in Atlanta. Three months after being sworn in, their white colleagues (from both parties) expelled 31 of them on the grounds that a black man could vote, yes, but not hold public office.
One hundred and fifty-eight years later, Georgia has elected a black woman to be governor. Keisha Lance Bottoms, 56, former mayor of Atlanta and former advisor to Joe Biden, has defeated Republican Rick Jackson. She is the first woman and the first black person to achieve this, and returns to the Democrats a position that they have not won since 1998.
He has done it with much more ease than expected. Already with just over 80% of the vote counted, he led Jackson by almost nine points when the polls prior to the midterm elections pointed to a tie. Jackson, who has spent more than $100 million on the race, conceded defeat even before the recount was completed. Only three black men have been governors in the United States.
Bottoms was born in Atlanta in 1970. His father, Major Lance, was a well-known rhythm and blues singer who had several hits in the 1960s, such as The Monkey Time and Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um. At the age of eight, Bottoms returned from school one day to find her house full of police and her father arrested for selling drugs. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served four. With that scene he opens his memoirs, published, of course, in the middle of the campaign, and it is where Bottoms says he found his passion for criminal justice reform.
Graduated in Law from Georgia State University, she was a prosecutor and judge before joining the City Council as a councilor in 2010. In 2017 she won the mayoralty in the second round by less than a thousand votes.
His mandate was a catalog of calamities, with a cyber attack 11 weeks after taking office, a pandemic and racial protests that went around the world. The attack came in March 2018 with a program that blocked the City Council's systems. Those responsible asked for six bitcoins to unlock them. Neighbors could not pay for water online and municipal courts went back to using paper for several weeks.
On the night of May 29, 2020, with riots in the city center after the murder of George Floyd, he appeared alongside Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, and rapper Killer Mike. "If you want change in the United States, go register to vote," he then asked the protesters. Weeks later, CNN placed her among Biden's four finalists for the vice presidency.
Then, with the pandemic, came a head-on clash with the governor. When Bottoms imposed mandatory masks in Atlanta in July 2020, Kemp (whom she will replace in January) sued her to overturn the order.
Biden hired Bottoms in 2022 as a senior adviser in the White House and in 2023 he appointed her to an advisory council that Trump struck down on the day of his inauguration.
In May of this year, she swept the state primaries, with more than 56% of the vote, and became the party's third consecutive black woman candidate after Stacey Abrams' two losses to Kemp.
In front of him was Rick Jackson, founder of the healthcare personnel company Jackson Healthcare and a newcomer to politics. In June he defeated Trump's candidate in the Republican second round. In July, the president changed his mind and gave him his support after Jackson publicly promised that he would be "his favorite governor."
Bottoms returned the phrase in the only debate they had, on October 6. He accused him of wanting to get rich and be the president's favorite. "What I want is to be your favorite governor, Georgia," she concluded. The message fell on fertile ground. In January, the FBI had removed hundreds of boxes of 2020 ballots from Fulton County in the heat of Trump's unproven fraud allegations. Bottoms then campaigned alongside Senator Jon Ossoff, also re-elected last night, and with the support of Barack Obama.
Neither the money, nor Trump, nor the crime wave ads during Bottoms' mayoral years were enough for Jackson. As of Oct. 23, his campaign had spent $114 million, mostly from his own fortune. Bottoms's, only 5.3 million, according to the state electoral finance commission.
Data centers
His program combines classic party banners (such as expansion of the Medicaid health care program, abortion rights and minimum wage) with a temporary moratorium on the construction of new data centers. Georgia is one of the regions where large technology companies have set their sights on their facilities, but the increase in the price of electricity has generated great rejection from the electorate.
For Bottoms, governing will not be easy. Republicans came into the day with a majority in both state chambers, which have repeatedly rejected expanding Medicaid, public health insurance for low incomes.
His role will be key, however, for Jon Ossoff's presidential aspirations. Ossoff was the only Democratic senator defending his seat in a state that Trump won in 2024. He has won over Mike Collins with almost 59% of the votes, more than four points above Bottoms and with a turnaround of almost 20 with respect to the presidential elections.
Ossoff has repeated several times that he has "zero interest" in running as a candidate in the 2028 presidential election, but his refusal has not stopped the wave of speculation. His name is always very high on the list of Democrats likely to win office. The arrival of Bottoms to the governorship clears the way because she will be in charge of choosing who replaces him in the Senate if he ends up becoming president of the country.
