How Hinojosa’s win in Texas could bite Beshear
The DGA defended its involvement and Beshear’s leadership, touting the more than $1.4 million it spent in Texas, including paying for campaign expenses and staff on the ground to support Hinojosa.
Key points
- On Tuesday, Hinojosa dominated the race for the Texas governor’s mansion, riding a blue wave that swept Democrats into power across the country, including flipping six governorships in states won by President Donald Trump.
- Beshear “doesn't understand politics in the way that a president needs to understand politics,” and “failed Latino voters and Texas voters and Democrats in this moment,” said Gonzalez, who previously worked as a top aide to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
- Hinojosa’s win “was the result of a curiosity that too many people in the establishment are still scared to embrace,” campaign manager Amy Friedman wrote in a post-election memo obtained by POLITICO.
AUSTIN, Texas — Gina Hinojosa’s stunning victory put Texas at the epicenter of a political earthquake — and the aftershocks could upend Andy Beshear’s path to the White House.
Additional details
- And her allies are out to challenge Beshear’s party leadership potential, taking their shots arguing that the Texas victory is not his to claim.
- Hinojosa’s race became the ultimate underdog campaign — a push to conquer a state Democrats had all but abandoned, with a candidate from the increasingly conservative Rio Grande Valley who her team was betting could turn out Latino voters in droves.
- Greg Abbott, the DGA’s minimal involvement in the race turned into a blistering wound that Hinojosa’s allies argued cut at the heart of the party’s historic lack of investment in Latino communities and candidates.
- “The DGA was proud to support her campaign as its largest contributor, along with our $12 million investment in Latino outreach across multiple successful campaigns on the path to electing a majority of Democratic governors for the first time since 2010.” But Hinojosa’s allies say it was about more than just money.
- “Andy Beshear is going to have to look at his playbook and understand that there was some pretty big missteps,” Stephanie Valencia, co-founder of Latino polling firm Equis Research, told POLITICO.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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