Texas Governor Race Heats Up as Hinojosa Targets Abbott on Data Centers and Flock Cameras

Most of the national focus in Texas has been on the Senate race between Democratic state legislator James Talarico and Donald Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton. Polling largely shows Talarico either leading or in a dead heat with Paxton.

But perhaps the bigger surprise in the Lone Star state has been the governor’s race between incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and state legislator Gina Hinojosa. And Hinojosa has zeroed in on two aspects that are aggravating voters of all stripes: AI data centers and Flock cameras.

“What is happening in Texas, I don't know if it's this bad anywhere,” Hinojosa told The Independent in an interview. “Really, there are just no rules. There are no laws. There are no protections.”

A former attorney general and a prolific fundraiser, Abbott has always won by significant margins. That appears to be changing this year. The most recent poll from the University of Texas-Austin and the Texas Politics Project showed a five-point gap between Hinojosa and Abbott, who is running for a fourth term.

Data centers have become a surprising flashpoint in the massive Lone Star State. In the same UT/TPPP poll, 57 percent of Texas voters either strongly or somewhat oppose construction of data centers in their community, with 43 percent of Republicans saying they oppose construction and 45 percent saying they support construction. Among independents, that number jumps to 54 percent.

“I think data centers are the physical manifestation in Texas of government that is working for the moneyed interests instead of the people,” she said.

Many voters and local residents, including in Republican areas, have pushed back against data centers because they fear their high consumption of electricity could raise consumer utility bills and compromise water safety. Hinojosa faulted Abbott for the quick construction.

“He is beholden to them,” she said. “He thinks it's a good thing that they praise him and they pat him on the head, and he brags about it because he is so out of touch with what Texans want and need for their communities that he he thinks praise from these multinational corporations who are peppering our state with data center.”

According to Electric Choice, Texas has the second highest number of data centers, behind only Virginia. But in recent months, data centers have faced a Texas backlash.

Hinojosa said she spoke with people in rural communities about data centers before coming up with her stance on the issue, which is to place a moratorium on new data centers so the legislature can write regulations for them.

“They [said] the most reasonable thing, ‘Well, you know, we have hundreds of trucks that come into our community now. It'd be nice if we had a traffic light,’” Hinojosa said. “ I mean, like the most reasonable request. But even that has been out of reach for Texans.”

Abbott has responded in kind, signing an executive order in August requiring the state’s public utility commission and Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct an audit on the centers, pausing construction in the mean time. But it might be too late.

“The best thing we have going for us in this election is that everybody knows who Greg Abbott is,” Hinojosa said.

Data centers have also become a top issue in other races across party lines. In Florida, David Jolly, the former Republican congressman running as a Democrat for governor, is running ads against Republican Rep. Byron Donalds saying “we don’t want crime or data centers in our neighborhoods.”

And in Wisconsin, state legislator Francesca Hong ran for the Democratic nomination for governor, ran aggressively against data centers, while David Crowley took more of a moderate position on them. In response, Republican nominee Tom Tiffany has tried to paint Crowley as friendly to data centers.

And even in Texas, Republicans like Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller have criticized data centers. That might benefit Hinojosa, who would need to win a considerable slice of Trump voters to compete in Texas.

“It's not moderate Republicans who are done with Greg Abbott,” she said. “This is MAGA.”

And Hinojosa will need some MAGA voters to back her if she wants to win. Texas has not had a Democratic governor since 1994, when George W. Bush beat Ann Richards. Since then, Texas has not elected a Democrat statewide.

In 2024, Republicans looked dominant in Texas. Trump won the state by double digits after only winning by single digits in his last two races. He won the ancestrally Democratic Rio Grande Valley, a majority-Hispanic region that borders Mexico, after it had voted for Democrats for decades.

But the high cost of living and Trump’s deportation policies toward migrant workers has turned Hispanic voters against Trump and Republicans.

“I think that people feel like they entrusted in Trump a populist agenda, and and he's trying to he's back on them,” Hinojosa told The Independent.

And unlike even Abbott, Trump has defended data centers, saying that they mean “jobs and lots of money and lower taxes,” saying he has signed an executive order requiring they provide their own electricity.

“I think it has created for this populist base that had been looking to the right to represent their interests, they're now up for grabs,” Hinojosa said. “Really, they're they're now looking out and saying, ‘Who's going to work for me? And at a time, 2026, when people are struggling like I haven't seen people struggle before in Texas.’

And there might be another area where Hinojosa could find common ground with Republicans. This week, she launched an ad criticizing Abbott for his support for Flock cameras, which scan license plates for authorities but have drawn sharp concern as the latest encroachment of Big Brother.

“I think that Flock cameras are more of that. And the thing about it too, it's just this this loss of control,” she said. The Waco Bridge reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety approved a $26 million contract for the cameras to operate on state roads.

“We didn't pass laws to authorize Flock cameras,” she said.

“They they're just popping up everywhere, and and so I just think it's I think that something has changed in this relationship with government and big business, where where it is these tech giants that are running the show now, and people see it. People are angry about it, and they're going to bite back in November.”