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“Greg Abbott sold us out.”
Gina Hinojosa’s Whataburger cup (filled with nonsweet iced tea) is a fun campaign prop, but it’s not her strategy to win the race for Texas governor. Pointing out the rampant grift and corruption in her state just might be.
From Trump to Epstein to data centers, Democrats have seized on a rigged system as the unifying message of the midterms.
Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy sat down with Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor of Texas. The 52-year-old state representative had been criss-crossing Texas for months, while beaming into podcasts and TV shows outside the stateto build buzz and try to persuade national donors to support a contest that was never supposed to be this close.
When Tim asked her to describe her opponent, three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, in one word, Hinojosa brightened. If you’ve been paying any attention to national politics this year, you could probably guess what she said:
“Corrupt.”
Could she elaborate? She would love to. “He has given a billion dollars in no bid contracts to his donors,” she said. “He’s waived competitive bidding laws in the state of Texas every month since 2020.” Abbott had taken $12 million in campaign funds from “an out-of-state billionaire” voucher activist and pushed through a $1 billion-a-year subsidy for private schools. She went on…
If Democrats like Hinojosa have managed to turn the election into a referendum on corruption, it’s also because Republicans have struggled to make the election about anything else.
Read the full story at MotherJones.com
Reporting by Tim Murphy
Video by Peter Berger