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MCALLEN, Texas — Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat running for governor against Republican Greg Abbott, opened a campaign headquarters in Mission today. She’s also making three campaign stops in McAllen, Weslaco, and Brownsville this week.
Fabiola Escalon, a McAllen-based grassroots activist involved in political organizing efforts across the region, said the events are an opportunity for people in the Rio Grande Valley to learn about how some of the issues they care about are related to the governor’s office.
Escalon said that political organizing efforts in the Valley ”are in full force” and that she is seeing more people she knows joining grassroots efforts in this election cycle in comparison to previous years. But as the November midterms approach, Escalon said “people are hyper-focused on national politics” and seem to not be making the connection between the governor’s race and some of the issues they care about.
“Everybody's complaining about electricity. It’s super expensive. And people on social media are complaining about data centers,” Escalon said. “But I don't know that they are tying these issues to the governor or to his policies.”
The governor's leverage over data centers and electricity prices is unusually direct. Abbott appointed every sitting member of the Public Utility Commission, the body that rules on data center grid connections. The commission also gets to decide who absorbs the cost of new power infrastructure.
Whoever is elected governor in November will get to appoint three new members to the commission in 2027.
Hinojosa grew up in Brownsville, where she launched her campaign last October in the city's historic district. As she took the stage, the crowd in attendance chanted “no te dejes,” her grandmother's words and an old saying about not backing down. Many in the room had known her growing up.
A civil rights and union lawyer, Hinojosa first ran for office in 2012, winning a seat on the Austin ISD school board after state budget cuts put her son's elementary school at risk of closing.
She was elected to the Texas House in 2016 and has spent nearly a decade in the Legislature, where she became one of Abbott's sharpest critics on private school vouchers.
If she wins in November, she would be the first Latina governor of Texas and the first from the Rio Grande Valley in modern state history.
Hinojosa will make three public stops in the Valley this week. The first is a rally in McAllen on Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. On Tuesday, she has a breakfast event at Ciro's Restaurant in Weslaco from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., followed that evening by a rally in Brownsville from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Addresses for the McAllen and Brownsville rallies are available through links to RSVP on Mobilize.
Her campaign is also opening a headquarters in Mission on Monday at 108 W. 18th St., at the corner of Conway Avenue and 18th Street.