Just before he resigned, Gilberto Hinojosa told Inside Texas Politics what went wrong for the party.
DALLAS — Three days after the November election, as Texas Democrats sat shellshocked from getting trounced up and down the ballot, Gilberto Hinojosa, the longtime chairman of the Texas Democratic Party announced his resignation.
In his resignation statement, Hinojosa said it’s time to pass the torch to the next generation of leaders.
“Voters sent a clear message to our party and our country that they want our leaders to talk to them about issues that they care about most, including the economy,” Hinojosa wrote. “In the days and weeks to come, it is imperative that our Democratic leaders across the country reevaluate what is best for our party and embrace the next generation of leaders to take us through the next four years of Trump and win back seats up and down the ballot.”
Hinojosa’s resignation is not immediate. It becomes official during the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting in March 2025. That’s also when Texas Democrats will select a new leader.
Hours after the election results showed a red wave sweeping across Texas, Hinojosa sat for an interview to air on Sunday’s Inside Texas Politics, discussing what he thinks went wrong for Texas Democrats, and why his party lost ground in Texas. Donald Trump flipped a number of Texas counties in the Rio Grande Valley from blue to red, including Cameron County, where Hinojosa lives, works and once served as county judge.
On Inside Texas Politics, Hinojosa blamed the billionaires backing Republicans in Texas and argued that without more support from the Democratic National Committee, Texas Democrats cannot keep up with non-stop television ads appearing across the state.
“We had no money to counter that except for the money [from] the [Democratic] candidates. [Republicans] had a ground game that they put together funded by the billionaires. We were not able to compete with that. Until the national [Democratic] Party decides to invest in Texas, we’re being left alone to fight this fight without any resources,” Hinojosa told Inside Texas Politics.
Harris’ defeat marks the second time Donald Trump has defeated a Democratic woman on the ballot. Hinojosa would not say that the country isn’t ready for a female President.
The chairman instead pointed to President Biden’s decision to stay in the race for as long as he did as the overriding factor.
“He should have withdrawn. In fact, he should never have announced from the very beginning, he should have withdrawn much earlier. There wasn’t enough chance to allow the party leadership to select a nominee,” he said. “Joe Biden selected that nominee for us. And we had to go with whoever the President selected in the three-month period we had left to campaign for that position. Joe Biden put us in an impossible position.”