Hinojosa Sues Abbott Over Musk Emails and Rallies South Texas in Final Eight-Day Push

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, speaks during a joint campaign event in Weslaco, Texas on October 25, 2026. Texas Democratic candidates for the midterm elections participate in joint campaign event ahead of the November 3 midterm elections (Credit: Photo by Gabriel V. Cardenas / AFP via Getty Images)

The Briefing

• With eight days until Election Day on November 3, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa opened her closing South Texas sweep in Brownsville and continued to Corpus Christi, betting her final argument on the border communities that delivered her more than 70 percent of the primary vote.
• On October 19 — the first day of early voting — Hinojosa filed suit against Governor Greg Abbott, demanding access to approximately 1,200 pages of his office's communications with Elon Musk, records Abbott's team had argued contained material it described as "intimate and embarrassing."
• Her flagship economic pledge calls for drawing roughly $17 billion from the state's approximately $27 billion Rainy Day Fund to send a $1,500 "Corruption Tax Refund" check to every Texas household while preserving $10 billion in reserves — a proposal that will need approval from a Republican-controlled legislature.