Democratic candidate for Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa campaigns in Big Bend - Marfa Public Radio

Hinojosa's swing through West Texas put a spotlight on the Big Bend border wall project, a proposal that has drawn sharp opposition from people across the political spectrum in that part of the state. Her campaign has centered on affordability, data centers, and schools, and the border wall fight gave her a concrete local issue to press in a region that lives with border policy in a way most of Texas does not.

For folks in Lubbock and across West Texas, the five-point gap is the number worth watching. Statewide races in Texas have historically broken hard for Republicans, and Abbott has never lost. That kind of margin, this far from November, is unusual territory for a Democratic challenger.

Hinojosa is the first Democratic candidate for Texas governor to poll within single digits of Abbott in recent memory. Her decision to campaign in a remote stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert rather than just the major metros signals that her team is treating the map differently than past cycles.