2 hours ago
BEEVILLE, Texas, Sept 4 (Reuters) - The makeup and toys on Valencia Macias' table are items people buy on impulse at discount stores. But on a sweltering summer day in South Texas, she is trying to sell them to turn them into gas money, grocery money, student loan money: any kind of money.
With three young children, a job as a medical ***** istant and nursing classes at night, the 26-year-old has little time for politics. But when Texas officials withdrew funding for the only after-school program available in her rural town of George West, politics became impossible to ignore.
Then, a TikTok video appeared: A Mexican American woman on the screen, Gina Hinojosa, talked about the high cost of living and badly needed investments in Texas public education. Macias stopped scrolling.
"With everything just getting so expensive and the gas and everything, it's really hard to just make do," Macias said. Seeing a mother and a woman who looks like her, Macias made up her mind: "100%, she has my vote."
Hinojosa, a Democratic state representative, is trying to end an electoral drought that has defined Texas politics for a generation: no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994.
#texas #woman
With three young children, a job as a medical ***** istant and nursing classes at night, the 26-year-old has little time for politics. But when Texas officials withdrew funding for the only after-school program available in her rural town of George West, politics became impossible to ignore.
Then, a TikTok video appeared: A Mexican American woman on the screen, Gina Hinojosa, talked about the high cost of living and badly needed investments in Texas public education. Macias stopped scrolling.
"With everything just getting so expensive and the gas and everything, it's really hard to just make do," Macias said. Seeing a mother and a woman who looks like her, Macias made up her mind: "100%, she has my vote."
Hinojosa, a Democratic state representative, is trying to end an electoral drought that has defined Texas politics for a generation: no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994.
#texas #woman
