Hinojosa Wins Texas Governor’s Race, Leaving Border Mission Operation Lone Star in Question

Texas Republicans lost the governor’s office for the first time in a generation, and the fate of Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature border program is now the biggest open question at the Capitol. Democrat Gina Hinojosa is governor-elect, the first Latina to win the job and the first Democrat in 30 years. She takes office in January.

Abbott went into Election Day with only a narrow edge in at least one poll. A Fox News survey showed him ahead 50 to 49 percent. He had held the office since 2015 and was seeking a fourth term. Republicans say that the result came in a night when Democrats also flipped a Texas Senate seat, and that the governor’s race can’t be separated from a national mood.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021 after saying the Biden administration had enacted open-border policies. The program is an $11 billion effort that has paid for a wall, razor wire and buoys, drug seizures and the arrest and deportation of unauthorized migrants. Abbott has credited it with detaining migrants and seizing fentanyl. Republicans say the record speaks for itself and that no Democrat has offered a plan that matches it.

Hinojosa’s position is the central question. Her campaign said Abbott should demand that the federal government return $11 billion in Texas taxpayer money spent on the program.

Conservatives read that as an admission that Texas, not Washington, covered the cost, and they say she will have to explain how a state without that money keeps up the effort. Supporters of the program also point to newspaper endorsements of her that were openly hostile to it, including one that said an Hinojosa administration would not see a “multibillion-dollar boondoggle like Operation Lone Star.”

What a governor can and can’t do

Republicans note that a governor doesn’t set Texas spending on her own. Funding is decided by the legislature, and the National Guard and Department of Public Safety deployments depend on cooperation across state agencies. Conservatives say that makes the first budget fight the real test of whether the program is wound down, scaled back or left alone. Hinojosa hasn’t said what she will do after taking office, and the transition is just starting.