The candidates

Greg Abbott (R)

Governor of Texas (48th) (2015–present)

Wichita Falls, TX · b. 1957

Career

• 2015–present Governor of Texas (48th)
• 2002–2015 Attorney General of Texas (50th)
• 1996–2001 Justice, Texas Supreme Court
• 1993–1996 Judge, Texas 129th District Court, Houston
• 1984–1992 Private practice, Butler and Binion LLP

Education

B.B.A., University of Texas at Austin (1981); J.D., Vanderbilt University Law School (1984)

Notable credentials

• Longest-serving incumbent governor in the United States (as of 2025)
• Paralyzed from the waist down by a falling tree shortly after law school; uses a wheelchair
• Filed 30+ lawsuits against the Obama administration as Texas AG (2002–2015)

Full bio + stances →

Gina Hinojosa (D)

Texas State Representative, HD-49 (2017–present)

McAllen, TX (born); raised in Brownsville · b. 1973

Career

• 2017–present Texas State Representative, HD-49
• 2012–2016 President, Austin ISD Board of Trustees
• pre-2012 Civil rights attorney, Kator, Parks & Weiser; AFSCME

Education

B.A. Plan II Honors / Government, University of Texas at Austin (1996); J.D., George Washington University Law School (1999)

Notable credentials

• Led Austin ISD as Board President: balanced budget, raised teacher pay, every AISD high school met state accountability standards for the first time, no school closed
• Part of the 2005 legal team that sued U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
• Daughter of Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa

Full bio + stances →

Grader clusters

Each grader is a documented value system — a religious tradition, a historical figure, an organization, or a demographic interest. We score each candidate from 0 to 10 on how well their 2026 platform aligns with that grader's documented values, drawing on their documented positions on the policy issues this race will decide. Reasoning is capped at five sentences per cell and footnoted to a numbered sources list.

The aggregate hides more than it reveals. Browse the scoring overview for cluster patterns, individual grader pages for the reasoning, or jump to the issue-by-issue comparison to see where the candidates actually differ on policy.

Methodology

Grading framework

Each grader is a documented value system — a religious tradition, a historical figure, an organization, or a demographic interest. Each candidate is scored 0–10 on how well their whole 2026 platform, as a package, aligns with that grader's documented values. Most scores land between 2 and 8 because real candidates have genuine internal contradictions and partial alignments.

Issues

Underneath the grader scores is a per-policy comparison: each candidate's documented position on the policy questions this race will decide, side by side. See the issue-by-issue comparison for the full set.

Sources

Positions are pieced together from official campaign materials, prior actions in office, legislative records, and media coverage. Greg Abbott's positions are drawn from his three terms as governor, signed and vetoed bills, executive orders, and gregabbott.com. Gina Hinojosa's positions are drawn from her record in the Texas House (HD-49, since 2017), authored bills, floor speeches, and ginafortexas.com. Every reasoning cell is footnoted to a numbered sources list. See the numbered sources list for every citation.

Limitations

Reading historical figures' values into 2026 American politics is unavoidably interpretive. The Hebrew Prophets cannot literally weigh in on Medicare buy-in; Lincoln cannot rate Trump tariffs. What this site does is apply each grader's documented framework — what they said, wrote, prioritized, and built — to the decisions a U.S. senator from Texas will make.

The aggregate score hides more than it reveals: the same candidate scores high with one cluster and low with another. The interesting reading is the cluster-by-cluster pattern, not the average.