Rio Grande Valley celebrates daughter Gina Hinojosa’s historic gubernatorial win
By Berenice Garcia, The Texas Tribune
November 4, 2026
SAN JUAN — As she took the stage Tuesday night to deliver her victory speech as governor-elect, Gina Hinojosa drew inspiration from her roots in South Texas.
“I am a daughter of the Rio Grande Valley,” Hinojosa said, “where the people embody the work ethic and values of our great state. Where no one would have imagined that one day a little girl from the RGV would stand before you here as the next governor of the greatest state — Texas.”
As part of a tsunami of Democratic victories across the state, Hinojosa, 52, became the first Latina governor in Texas’ history, shattering expectations and injecting a surge of pride into a region that often feels isolated and ignored.
“The fact that she’s Latina, from the Valley — that’s amazing and that is very historic,” said Rebecca Obregon, a resident of Hinojosa’s hometown, Brownsville.
Hispanic and Latino residents make up about 41% of Texas’ population. In the Valley, they make up more than 90% of the population, largely due to the region’s location along the state’s southern border with Mexico. Marketed during the early 20th century to settlers as a tropical haven, ideal for growing citrus and other produce, the Valley’s economy was traditionally driven by agriculture. However, the region has rapidly urbanized over the decades and continues to transform in that direction like the rest of the state. Despite economic advances, the Valley’s poverty rate remains double that of the rest of Texas.
The Valley also has a long political history in Texas as the focal point of one of the state’s most notable fights over farm workers’ rights, the 1966 Melon Strike. For decades it was a Democratic — albeit conservative — stronghold.
Hinojosa also comes from a political background. Her father, Gilberto Hinojosa, is the former chair for the Texas Democratic Party who also served as Cameron County judge, the top elected office in the county.
Texas’ Democratic sweep on Tuesday was powered by Hispanic voters along the border. Hinojosa, along with state Rep. James Talarico and Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, energized the border counties, which drove an 8% increase in voter turnout, more than any other region in the state.
Obregon, a member of the Valley’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, attended Hinojosa’s campaign launch party in Brownsville in October 2025, having just learned that the state representative from Austin who she long-admired is a Valley native.
She liked that Hinojosa talked openly about her mixed-status family and visiting family who lived on the other side of the border with Mexico, a common practice among Valley residents.
“She’s aware of how living at the border here is,” she said.
La Union Del Pueblo Entero, a Latino civil rights organization in the Valley, employed a large canvassing effort to elect Democratic candidates through their political sibling organization, LUPE Votes.
With Hinojosa’s gubernatorial win, the group feels the Valley has a voice at the table when it comes to state and federal policy, something they’ve always struggled with, said Tania A. Chavez Camacho, LUPE’s executive director.
“What a great honor to have the governor of the great state of Texas being represented by somebody who was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley,” Chavez Camacho said.
She emphasized that the job comes with a great responsibility to ensure the region is well-represented.
“The fact that she’s already there is great, but also she needs to stay in conversation with [the] community in order to be successful in her role as governor,” Chavez Camacho said.
The group hopes to work with Hinojosa on matters like the 2030 U.S. Census to ensure that non-U.S. citizens are counted. They also want to strengthen voting rights protections to minimize confusion with mail-in ballots and to allow older voters to receive help with their mail-in ballots.
Hinojosa’s win wasn’t a big surprise for Emerge, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women candidates, said A’shanti Gholar, president and CEO.
“[It] just speaks to what the Latino community is going through in Texas, from ICE raids, the attacks on reproductive rights, everything that happens in the education system,” Gholar said Wednesday. “Last night they sent a very clear message that they were ready for change and they know that Governor-elect Hinojosa, she’s going to bring that change.”
The historic turnout among Hispanic and Latino voters across the state was a sign that those communities were realizing their power, said Maria Teresa Kumar, co-founder of Voto Latino, a nonprofit that aims to engage more Latinos across the country to vote.
“What was most joyful last night was really seeing a community that has been so mistreated, so forgotten, finally find their voice,” Kumar said.
Kumar believes Hinojosa’s roots in the Valley really played a role in elevating her to victory over Gov. Greg Abbott, a three-term incumbent.
Hinojosa has genuine experience with the issues that the Hispanic residents in the Valley, and elsewhere across Texas, are living today. And that enabled her to connect with them, Kumar said.
“At a time when Latinos feel so misunderstood and so attacked, she didn’t have to speak in code,” she said.
Hinojosa will be the first Latina governor in the state’s history, and the first woman governor since 1994, when Ann Richards lost reelection.
Kumar said her ascension will show Latino children everywhere what they are capable of.
Chavez Camacho, the LUPE executive director, noted that many of the organization’s members are under 30 years old and have never seen Texas led by a woman.
“They have never lived in a Texas that has been [led] by a Mexicana, by a Latina, and I think for us in South Texas, for us immigrants, that represents a lot,” she said.
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune. 