‘A Latino problem’: National Democrats clash with Andy Beshear over Texas governor’s race
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
(CNN) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear hoped being chair of the Democratic Governors Association this midterms year would raise his profile and connections ahead of his expected 2028 run for president.
But it’s also created an opening to ramp up pressure on him, with frustrations spilling into the open this week as multiple Texas Democratic members of Congress and national group leaders accused him of putting his book tour and potential 2028 activity ahead of helping Democratic nominee Gina Hinojosa win the Texas governor’s race.
At issue is national money going into Hinojosa’s underfunded, underdog race against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, once seen as nearly unbeatable. The latest New York Times/Siena poll finds no clear leader in the race, with Hinojosa up by four points, within the margin of sampling error.
Hinojosa and allies started by asking for $10 million from Beshear and the Democratic Governors Association, though they since downgraded to asking for $3 million. Only this week did the DGA announce plans to put $1 million into the race, with the possibility, but no promise, of adding more.
“It just felt that he’s not taking Latinos seriously, and they’re not taking Latinos seriously as a voting bloc in the Democratic Party,” Texas Rep. Sylvia Garcia said of Beshear. “And if that’s the case, then he is going to have a Latino problem in 2028.”
Beshear aides don’t just reject the accusations; they bristle at what they see as an unfair effort to humiliate Beshear in public, with a person familiar with internal DGA conversations telling CNN that their polls have Hinojosa down by 5 points — even though another person familiar with the matter says the campaign’s own polls have her within the margin of error.
“It’s a tough argument that money should go there when many other candidates are tied or ahead in states much cheaper than Texas,” the person familiar with the DGA conversations told CNN.
What’s happening, though, isn’t just about Beshear or Texas. It’s Latino leaders road-testing how they can and will flex the political sway of one of the country’s biggest yet often overlooked voting blocs, and that once again this year is proving to be one of the swingiest.
“We cannot just think about the significance of this race in the context of this moment, but about what it will and could and should mean for 2028,” Rep. Veronica Escobar said on a Zoom meeting with DGA officials that Beshear did not attend. Escobar argued that a Hinojosa win would signal that Texas – which has 40 electoral votes – can be competitive in a presidential election for the first time in decades.
On the call, DGA executive director Meghan Meehan-Draper said several times that the organization believes in Hinojosa’s campaign, blaming the vagaries of campaign finance law and funds stretched thin nationally for not putting more into Texas. Though both those are true, the DGA is also working off its own polling that is driving its hesitancy.
“Your complete mishandling of this and your total disrespect to us has been absolutely astonishing,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, president and CEO of the Latino group Maremoto, when she was tapped to speak.
Juan Proaño, the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he was surprised by the tone of what he heard on the call. Beshear, Proaño told CNN, is “doing the best he possibly can given the environment we’re in,” adding that he’s been satisfied with the governor’s broader Latino outreach so far.
Of the DGA officials on the call, Proaño said, “I will take them at their word that they will try to do more, but I’m also realistic about the constraints that there are which are much broader than Texas.”
Beshear, through aides, declined an interview request. His aides did provide a statement from New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the only current Latino governor in the country, urging against infighting.
“I’ve worked closely with Gov. Beshear, Democratic governors and the DGA to invest in Hispanic communities across the country and raising the money so Gina’s campaign can get her message out to voters,” Lujan Grisham said.
Tom Perez told CNN he remembers conversations like these when he was the Democratic National Committee chair during the 2018 midterms.
“As someone was leading a party committee during a tailwind year, we had a size-12 set of opportunities in 2018 and we had a size-10 budget,” Perez said. “I think there’s a size-14 set of opportunities in the governors’ race context in 2026, and they are doing their best to spread the wealth.”
Perez, who is of Dominican descent, said that Beshear’s work as governor with Latinos in Kentucky’s rural communities and in Louisville undercuts political accusations being made now: “His record speaks for itself.”
The DGA defends itself – and gets a hand from JB Pritzker
A DGA aide pointed to investments beyond the $1 million in Texas to pay some expenses and staff on the ground, plus $25,000 Beshear contributed to the Hinojosa campaign through his own PAC. The aide also pointed to DGA money flowing into the governor’s races in Arizona and Nevada, much of it Latino-voter and Spanish-language focused.
Those two races — with the Democratic governor of Arizona running for a second term and Democrats trying to unseat the incumbent first-term Republican in Nevada — currently look more in play to the DGA than Texas.
The DGA operative also noted that Beshear has already made other calls to national donors trying to get more money to Texas, but been told no. In a call last week directly with Hinojosa, Beshear said money was short, but he was going to find $1 million for her.
On the call, several offered to provide Beshear names of donors they’d been talking to about raising more money for Texas. A Beshear aide offered to bring the list to the governor, but made no commitments that he would place the calls. They followed up with an updated list of Texas and national donors to Beshear’s team.
Beshear succeeded in appealing to one of the organization’s most reliable billionaire donors, who also happens to be the governor of Illinois – and who also happens to be taking steps toward a 2028 presidential run: JB Pritzker.
Beshear had a phone call with Pritzker asking for more money in which the Illinois governor then committed to a fresh $1 million, according to a person familiar with the call.
Though that money wasn’t earmarked for Texas, it did put the same amount of money in the DGA pot that Beshear then sent to Texas — and which Pritzker then essentially doubled by announcing that he was giving $1.2 million to Hinojosa personally.
“This race is winnable – it’s time for the cavalry,” Pritzker said on a call with some of the same Latino House members from Texas earlier this week, informing them of his direct donation.
That’s still combined less than the $5 million Pritzker gave to the DGA in the 2022 cycle, in part a reflection of his eagerness for the organization to be more aggressive in how it responded to the second Trump term.
A hard national shift among Latino voters away from Trump and better than expected polling from Hinojosa and Senate candidate James Talarico have fed dreams of new Lone Star State wins in 2026 and 2028 – at the local and district levels as well as state and national.
The last two years of many feeling targeted by Trump have heightened how invested Hinojosa’s supporters are in her candidacy.
“Gina is the thing that unlocks the hatred that our entire community is feeling nationally,” Alida Garcia of the group Twin Impact said toward the end of the call, getting emotional. “Texas sets the tone for our bad our community gets treated everywhere else in the nation, so having Gina there changes the whole tone for us.”
Hinojosa’s campaign remains diplomatic as the start of early voting nears, with a spokesperson telling CNN she appreciates all the help so far.
“We’re grateful for the support we’ve received in this final stretch from leaders across the country, and most of all from Texans who are ready for change after 12 years of Greg Abbott,” said Hinojosa campaign spokesman Tommy Kubitschek.
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