Democrats have long yearned for a gubernatorial candidate who could break Texas open. In 2013, Wendy Davis became an internet sensation for filibustering a state anti-abortion bill, and some commentators declared that she would be the one. In 2014, she lost to Republican Greg Abbott by more than 20 percentage points. Another internet and media darling, former congressman Beto O’Rourke, attracted massive national press coverage for his campaign; he lost his 2022 race to Abbott by 11 points.
Now Gina Hinojosa, a formerly little-known Texas state representative, has actually broken through, taking the governor’s office from Abbott by about 7 points. She did not win because she had a compelling story or presence but because of a nationwide blue wave that caught Texas in its wake. The wave also gave Democrats the powerful office of lieutenant governor and control of the state House of Representatives for the first time since 2002.
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Texas’s new Democratic leaders have received shockingly little attention compared with their party’s predecessor candidates. They are also far more left-leaning than anyone elected to statewide office in Texas history. Yet they will probably change Texas far less than either the Left hopes or the Right fears.
Democratic Party primary voters didn’t pick Governor-elect Hinojosa because they thought she was a moderate. She has represented a liberal Austin district for years and is a proud member of the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus. In 2019, she introduced a bill to provide “every Texas resident [with] comprehensive healthcare services”—a state version of Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All proposal, as the Austin Chronicle noted. The “resident” language was not unintentional, because she wanted illegal immigrants to get coverage, too.
Though Texas has one of the nation’s oldest right-to-work laws, passed under a Democratic administration, Hinojosa proudly declares herself a “union lawyer.” She has worked for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, which, outside of teachers’ unions, is the largest public employee union in the U.S. And though Texas has never had an income tax, Hinojosa has previously stated that, in addition to property and sales taxes, Texas needed income taxes as “the third leg of the stool that’s required to have a robust and strong and resilient economy.”
By some reckonings, the Texas lieutenant governor, who presides over the state senate, is more powerful than the governor. Vikki Goodwin, another formerly little-known state representative, who just bested Texas powerbroker Dan Patrick, will inherit this chair and—unless the Republican Senate thwarts her—its powers. Goodwin is no moderate: her voting record in 2025 made her the sixth most liberal of Texas’s 150 House members, two spots higher than Hinojosa.
Given these offices, a newly Democratic House, and several other new Democratic statewide officials, including attorney general, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner, and the comptroller’s office, many think the Democrats could fundamentally transform the state. In reality, they can do little to change Texas’s general direction.
One conservative program that will likely fall is school vouchers, which Governor Abbott made a key part of his last term in office. Hinojosa campaigned to “End the Voucher Scam,” and Goodwin promised to block any budget with voucher funding. But vouchers were signed into law just last year, meaning that the Democrats would only restore Texas’s educational program to where it was very recently.
Many point to Hinojosa’s ardent campaign against data centers, which could threaten one of Texas’s biggest industries. Texas is second only to Virginia in the number of existing data centers and has more than twice the amount of expected growth in large data center capacity as any other state.
But Hinojosa’s union background may work to data centers’ advantage, since unions have been generally supportive of the blue-collar jobs that these projects often bring. And the actual language of Hinojosa’s campaign focused the moratorium on “new” data centers, not the vast number already approved or under construction, and only until “the legislature can meet to put in place real protections.” That’s actually not far from Governor Abbott’s current position of a temporary ban until study and new protections can be put in place. In reality, Texas’s data center momentum is too strong and would stir up too much opposition if anyone attempted to squelch it entirely.
The new progressive Democrats do want to spend more. Hinojosa promised a $1,500 “corruption tax refund”—the corruption being that Governor Abbott “hoarded” too much money in the state’s rainy-day fund that she wants to hand out. She and Goodwin will also push to expand state Medicaid and health-care spending. But since Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment banning state income taxes in 2019, and since the majority of the state’s taxes come from a sales tax that Democrats are not eager to raise, there is little wiggle room for more spending. The likelier outcome is that the state’s new leaders will just shift spending around.
In his book Red State Blues, political scientist Matt Grossmann noted that Republicans were barely able to change the direction of formerly blue states when they assumed power after the 1994 and 2010 red waves. One reason was that the general political tendencies of states mattered more than partisan control. So states like Michigan remained relatively liberal under both Democrats and Republicans, while Texas remained relatively conservative under either party. Democrats in Texas will learn what Republicans elsewhere have discovered: a state’s policies tend to be sticky.
Texas has been seen as a model of conservative governance, and for good reason. Since 2020, it has added 2.6 million residents, more than any other state. Its low taxes, low cost of living, cheap energy, and booming housing market are a continuing refutation of arguments that the red-state model can’t work. Political and constitutional constraints mean that a blue Texas will likely remain far more conservative in its policies than even many technically red states. The Texas state model might change some, but it will endure.