Gina Hinojosa counts on anger over Texas schools to upset Greg Abbott | Opinion

Gina Hinojosa is the longest of long shots.

The Democrat is running for governor against the most popular Republican in Texas.

In his charmed political life, Gov. Greg Abbott has won his last seven elections by 20, 16, 23, 30, 20, 13 and 11 points.

He has a wider lead in polls than other Republicans. And Hinojosa, an Austin lawyer and Texas House Democrat, is little-known in North Texas.

If she wins, it will have to be because U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico churned up a huge blue wave, not just a ripple of swing voters.

So far, Hinojosa is campaigning to that most elusive of Texas voters: School parents and teachers.

Teachers famously don’t vote. The education vote hasn’t decided a Texas election in 40 years, since Gov. Mark White was turned out of office over education reforms that included a teacher “competency test” and “no pass, no play.”

Now, “if we’re ever going to have an education vote, it’s going to be in November,” said Glenn Rogers, a Republican and former state representative from Palo Pinto County defeated in a 2024 primary because he opposed private school vouchers.

When I called, he had just killed a rattlesnake in knee-high grass on his ranch along the Brazos River.

“If you can see them and hear them, that’s one thing,” he said. “But when all of a sudden you look down and you’re on one, that’s a little unnerving.”

Texas schoolteachers and parents didn’t see the snake.

Now, they’re up against an education reform movement running wild, with leaders making good changes at failing schools but also spying on teachers’ off-campus comments and teaching Bible lessons instead of science and history.

Rogers said he’s had enough.

“I won’t vote for Abbott,” he said. “ ... There’s so many Republicans I can’t vote for when it comes to public education.”

Hinojosa needs those voters.

That’s why she’s on a tear against (1) vouchers, (2) tight state spending on schools and (3) state takeovers of local schools, like in Fort Worth and Lake Worth.

Hinojosa, a former Austin school board president, held nothing back the other day at a rally at the old Azle Hall auditorium in Fort Worth, where the state had to stage an emergency takeover of the lethargic public schools.

When she said she will fire state Education Commissioner Mike Morath her first day as governor, the crowd responded with loud cheers and a 25-second ovation.

I’m not going to say voters are stirred up.

But this is the first time I remember when voters even knew the name of the Texas education commissioner.

“We are all paying the Greg Abbott corruption tax,” she said, referring to the $10 million campaign gift from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and free-market education megadonor.

She referred to Texas’ $1 billion in grants to private school parents as a “billion-dollar voucher scheme.”

She also said she will cancel the state school-grading system based on what she called the “flawed and rigged” STAAR tests.

And she described the new state-mandated school curriculum including religious lessons as “how Greg Abbott uses culture wars to distract us” while spending money with outside contractors.

The religious lessons were added to win support from conservative Christians, she said. The Republican Party is now dominated by a church faction bankrolled by West Texas energy billionaires Tim Dunn of Midland and Farris Wilks of Cisco.

On top of it all, Texas’ school districts are strapped to keep up with inflation.

“Our public schools are on life support right now,” Hinojosa said at a Grapevine forum.

Rogers, the Republican, wouldn’t say how he’ll vote for governor, or if he’ll skip that line on the ballot.

But he said Hinojosa has a chance.

“There’s a number of people that have never voted Democrat that will in November, and it’s primarily over public education,” he said.

It would be the first time in 40 years.