Gina Hinojosa

A Family of Lawyers in Brownsville

Hinojosa was born in McAllen on 8 December 1973, according to the Mexican news site N+ and the Colombian paper Portafolio, and was raised in Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley.

Both of her parents practiced law there. Her father, Gilberto Hinojosa, was the first in his family to graduate from college, La Nación reported. He became a lawyer and went on to serve as a county judge, a district judge and an appeals judge. Governor Ann Richards appointed him to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, and from 2012 to 2025 he chaired the Texas Democratic Party. La Nación lists him now as a private attorney in Brownsville. Her mother, Crisanta Guerra Lozano, is a lawyer with the Brownsville firm Roerig, Oliveira & Fisher.

Her sister, Xochitl Hinojosa, is a political commentator on CNN. Hinojosa's campaign biography credits her grandmother with a phrase she uses as a motto, "No te dejes," which the campaign translates as "Fight back."

UT Austin, George Washington Law and the DeLay Lawsuit

She went through the public schools in Brownsville, then earned a bachelor's degree in government at the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree at George Washington University, according to her campaign and IBTimes UK.

Her campaign says she began as a civil rights and union lawyer, and that in 2005 she was on the legal team that sued Tom DeLay, then majority leader of the U.S. House. That account is her own campaign's; no independent record of her part in the case was found for this article.

She is married to John Philip Donisi, a lawyer in Austin. IBTimes UK and N+ both report that the couple have two sons.

The Elementary School Closure That Sent Her to the Austin ISD Board

Her way into elected office ran through one of her sons' schools. IBTimes UK and her campaign both say she ran for the Austin Independent School District board after state budget cuts put his elementary school at risk of closing. "I was just a mad mom and I ran for the school board and won," she said, as quoted by KXAN when she entered the governor's race.

IBTimes UK dates her arrival on the board to 2012. Her campaign says the board chose her as its president in 2015. The next year she ran for the legislature.

A Texas House Seat in Austin, 2017

Hinojosa won a seat in the Texas House in 2016, representing part of Austin, and took office in January 2017, according to CBS Texas, KXAN and IBTimes UK. She still held the seat in October 2025, when she announced for governor.

Schools stayed her subject in the Capitol. KXAN described her as one of the most vocal opponents of education savings accounts, the proposal to let families spend public money on private school tuition. That opposition became a plank of her campaign.

The Announcement of 15 October 2025

She entered the race for governor on 15 October 2025. CBS Texas listed the positions she launched with: more money for public schools, opposition to taxpayer-funded savings accounts for private schools, lower costs for families, wider access to health care, and limits on corporate influence in state government.

"Our fight right now is against billionaires and corporations," she said that day. By the autumn of 2026 the billionaires and corporations had names: data center operators, the governor's largest donors, and Elon Musk.

Data Center Tax Breaks and Abbott's Donors in San Antonio

At a campaign stop in San Antonio that KSAT covered on 8 October 2026, she went after the tax treatment of data centers. "Greg Abbott invited data centers into Texas with the richest tax breaks in the country," she said. "They pay no sales tax on all the electricity they consume for 20 years. He signed that into law." She also challenged Abbott to a debate on 15 October.

She paired the attack with the money behind his campaign. Reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission on 5 October covered 1 July to 24 September 2026. Hinojosa reported about $13.26 million in contributions, $12.12 million in spending, $4.08 million on hand and about $387,000 in outstanding loans. Texans for Greg Abbott, the governor's committee, reported about $20.30 million raised, $69.97 million spent and $17.32 million on hand.

KSAT counted 52 donors who had given the committee $100,000 or more, together $14.46 million, or about 71 percent of the contributions it reported. The two filings are not a direct comparison, since one is a candidate's report and the other a committee's, but the gap in spending was wide: Abbott's committee spent more than five times what she did over the same weeks.

The Lawsuit Over Abbott's Messages With Elon Musk

In October 2026, with early voting under way, Hinojosa sued the governor over public records of his communications with Elon Musk. KSAT reported that Abbott's office had reviewed 1,374 pages in response and left about 200 of them visible.

"The people have a right to know and I, as a representative, have the right to see them," she said. The suit tied two of her campaign themes together: the influence of wealthy backers on state policy, and her standing as a legislator to demand records from the executive branch she was trying to take over.

The First Democratic Governor Since Ann Richards

The office she won was last held by a Democrat when Richards, the governor who appointed her father to the criminal justice board, left it in 1995. Since then the job has belonged to Republicans, most recently to Abbott.

What she inherits, by her own account, includes a 20-year sales tax exemption on the electricity data centers use, which she says Abbott signed into law, and a debate over private school savings accounts that she opposed in the House. What she has said she will change follows from her launch: more school funding, lower costs for families, more access to health care and less room for corporate money in state decisions. None of the reporting opened for this article sets out how she plans to move those through a legislature she has sat in since 2017.

Sources

• Hinojosa defeats Abbott, becomes first Democratic Texas governor since 1995
• Texas governor's race 2026: Hinojosa defeats Abbott to become state's first Democratic governor in decades | FOX 26 Houston
• Who Is Gina Hinojosa? Meet the First Latina Elected Governor of Texas After Shock Win Over Abbott | IBTimes UK
• ¿De Dónde Son los Papás de Gina Hinojosa? Árbol Genealógico Demócrata de Raíces Mexicanas que Gobernará Texas | N+
• ¿Quién es Gina Hinojosa, la primera latina en gobernar la conservadora Texas?
• Quiénes son los padres de Gina Hinojosa, nueva gobernadora de Texas que derrotó a Greg Abbott en las elecciones 2026
• Meet Gina | Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor
• Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa joins race for Texas governor - CBS Texas
• State Rep. Gina Hinojosa enters race for Texas governor
• Gina Hinojosa targets Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign donors, data center tax breaks in San Antonio
• Gina Hinojosa sues Gov. Greg Abbott over communications with Elon Musk as early voting continues