Abbott Says Gina Hinojosa Supports Sharia Law, Pointing to CAIR's Backing and Her Votes

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott went on national TV Sunday and said out loud what his campaign has been hinting at all week: his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin, "supports Sharia law."

Abbott made the charge on Fox News' The Sunday Briefing, nine days before Election Day, when host Jacqui Heinrich asked whether Hinojosa should publicly reject the endorsement she got from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Abbott didn't take the bait to soften it. He doubled down.

"As governor, I designated both CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations," Abbott said. "And obviously, there should be no candidate in the state of Texas who's going to be endorsed by these foreign terrorist organizations. And obviously, Gina supports that endorsement that she got from them because she supports Sharia law. I mean, she supports Sharia communities."

Then he drew the line: "What I'm focused on doing is making sure that we ban Sharia law, Sharia cities, Sharia compounds." He called it "a massive gaping divide in the state of Texas about what the future is going to look like with regard to Sharia law."

Most write-ups stopped at the quote. What it skipped is the paper trail Abbott is actually pointing to. It's real, it's public, and it runs back three years.

The endorsement

CAIR's political arm, CAIR Action, published its 2026 Texas voter guide this month. At the top of the state ticket, it rates Hinojosa "PREFERRED" for governor (the guide even misspells her name "Hinajosa"). It gives the same rating to James Talarico, the Democrat running against Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, and to Nathan Johnson for attorney general. Lieutenant governor candidate Vikki Goodwin gets the top rating, "ENDORSED."

The guide spells out what the labels mean. "Preferred" is "closer alignment than alternatives." "Endorsed" is "strong alignment with our priorities." So CAIR Action looked at Abbott and Hinojosa and decided she is the one closer to what it wants. The guide doesn't say whether any candidate asked for the rating.

Abbott's campaign seized on it Oct. 20 in a release headlined "Foreign Terrorist Organization Supports Gina Hinojosa's Campaign." Press secretary Eduardo Leal said: "It's no surprise that a known Islamic terror organization prefers Gina Hinojosa in the governor's race."

The two votes

Here's the part the national write-ups left thin. Abbott's designation of CAIR didn't come out of thin air. It rests on a 2023 law, Senate Bill 1900, that gave Texas its own power to name foreign terrorist organizations and go after their networks with state organized-crime charges.

SB 1900 passed the Texas House 93-51 on May 22, 2023. Hinojosa voted no. So did Talarico, then a fellow Austin-area House member. Abbott signed it June 9, 2023, and it took effect that September.

Two years later came the EPIC City fight, over a planned Muslim-centered development northeast of Dallas. Lawmakers answered with House Bill 4211. Read the actual text and it does two plain things. It bars the companies that run buy-in housing setups from discriminating in who gets in, and it says any dispute has to go to "a court established under the laws of this state or the United States," not some other tribunal. In other words, no private religious court gets the last word on your home.

HB 4211 passed the House 104-41 on May 8, 2025. Every one of the 41 no votes was a Democrat, and Hinojosa and Talarico were both among them. Abbott signed it June 20, 2025.

Abbott's campaign goes a step further and points to a 2017 vote on House Bill 45, a bill limiting the use of foreign law in Texas family courts, claiming Hinojosa was one of only eight House members who sided with CAIR against it. That count is the campaign's.

The designation

On Nov. 18, 2025, Abbott used his SB 1900 power and designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations, barring both from buying or acquiring land in Texas. "The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam's 'mastership of the world,'" he said at the time.

CAIR denies any terror ties and sued. The case, CAIR Texas Dallas Fort Worth v. Abbott, is still pending in federal court in Austin. As Heinrich noted on air, CAIR disputes the terrorism label. Until a court says otherwise, though, Texas law treats the group as a terrorist organization, and its political arm just told Muslim voters to pick Hinojosa.

Think of it like a sheriff's race where a gang the state has officially banned puts out a list of who it wants to win. The candidate on that list doesn't have to have asked for it. But voters are entitled to ask why the gang likes her.

Why it matters now

Abbott opened the same interview by calling Hinojosa "further progressive left than Talarico," claiming her voting record ranks as the most liberal in the Texas House and that she "voted 40 times for higher property taxes."

Fox's own poll, which Heinrich cited, has Abbott up 52 to 47, unchanged since September, in a state where nearly 4 million people had already voted. That's comfortable, but it's closer than a Texas governor's race usually runs, and Heinrich pointed out the Senate race between Paxton and Talarico is essentially tied. Abbott's answer was turnout: Republicans who assumed Texas wins itself are "realizing, listen, they have to get off the couch and go vote."

The CAIR fight is his sharpest argument for why they should. It ties the top two Democrats on the ballot to the same list, and to the same two no votes.

We found no public response from Hinojosa or her campaign to Sunday's charge by Sunday night. The question Heinrich asked, whether she'll reject CAIR Action's backing, is still sitting there. Early voting in Texas runs through Friday, Oct. 30. Election Day is Nov. 3.