When Gina Hinojosa's victory in the Texas governor's race was announced at her election night party Tuesday, 21-year-old Ava Marchant dissolved into tears of mascara-smeared happiness, trading embraces with various members of her family. For Marchant, the win provided hope that laws restricting reproductive rights in Texas could change.
"I'm feeling just overcome with joy and relief," she said. "When Abbott's been governor, you know, I've just felt pressure as a woman in Texas, and I felt scared."
Texas has one of the tightest bans on abortion in the country, restricting the practice except in narrow medical circumstances when the mother's life or a major bodily function is at risk. Over the past five years, the state's conservative Legislature has passed laws that pioneered new methods to crack down on abortion, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doggedly pursued their enforcement.
Now, Texas will have its first Democratic governor in more than three decades. The Texas House of Representatives has a blue majority, and Democrats were elected to the influential roles of lieutenant governor and attorney general.
For voters like Marchant, it feels like a new frontier. Anti-abortion advocates feel it, too.
"I've been working on pro-life legislation for the last 22 years, and this is the biggest shift I've seen in that amount of time," said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. "We expect that dynamics across the board will be significantly more difficult for the pro-life movement in Texas."
Still, the Texas Senate remains red, with Republicans holding 19 of 31 seats. That means legislators interested in expanding abortion rights in the state will have to seek common ground across the aisle, and that champions of the anti-abortion movement in the Senate still have a strong position to block sweeping changes to Texas' laws.
Abortion rights advocates consider what's possible
For Texas abortion rights advocates who are accustomed to navigating a highly unfavorable political environment, the changes to the makeup of the state government feel dramatic and surreal.
"I'm pretty sure we're being punked," joked Kaitlyn Kash following Tuesday's election.
Kash, a former plaintiff in a high-profile lawsuit that challenged Texas' abortion law, has shared her personal story of navigating the law in legislative hearings and political campaign appearances over the past three years; she sought an abortion outside the state after her baby was diagnosed with a severe developmental disorder that meant it was unlikely to survive birth.
Kash has experienced disappointments in those years of activism, from Kamala Harris' loss in 2024 to seeing additional restrictions succeed in the Texas Legislature in 2025, though a narrow bill clarifying the emergency medical exception to the state's abortion bans also passed. That's why Kash isn't ready to say whether a major change or repeal of the laws might be possible.
"I think it's way too early," she said. "I guess what I've learned from just my brief stint in working with the Texas Legislature is … it's really hard to speculate what could happen."
However, raven e. Freeborn, who serves as the CEO of the reproductive rights organization Avow, said on Wednesday that they are ready to think about big wins.
"Before yesterday, Avow was committed to what we were calling another 30-year long-haul fight," Freeborn said. "Today, we're standing in the pool of what was called the impossible. So I choose to believe."
Blue House, red Senate
With a state legislative session starting in January, legislators in the House who favor abortion rights could soon begin pre-filing bills that seek to chip away at Texas' restrictions. But a wholesale repeal of the state's abortion bans shouldn't be expected, said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston.
"It took 30 years for the Republicans to get to this point of creating the bans that exist in Texas law now," Sims said. "It's going to take a little bit of time to reverse those actions, and a confidence that that's what Texans really want."
Texas has multiple overlapping laws that prohibit abortion, which include both civil and criminal enforcement mechanisms. People who are suspected of "aiding and abetting" an abortion can be sued, and doctors who perform abortions face extensive fines and prison time. During the last legislative session, lawmakers layered on new restrictions, cracking down on the use of telemedicine to provide abortion pills from out of state.
Sims said she expects anti-abortion members of the Senate to fight hard to "protect what they created," but predicts that bills that introduce more exceptions to abortion laws, such as for rape or incest, may be successful.
Blocking those efforts will be a priority for the anti-abortion coalition. Amy O'Donnell, executive director for the Texas Alliance for Life, said her organization would do all they could to prevent any exceptions from passing.
"The House could potentially pass some bills calling for exceptions, and they will not pass the Senate," O'Donnell said. "I'm confident of it."
Anti-abortion groups prepare to play defense
Outside the legislature, Gov.-elect Hinojosa could also put pressure on anti-abortion priorities. Though she will not have the power to change the law as governor, she could bring in new leadership at the Texas Health and Human Service Commission and make appointments to the Texas Medical Board, which has issued guidance for doctors on how to navigate abortion laws. HHSC also oversees the Thriving Texas Families program, which provides funding to crisis pregnancy centers that counsel against abortion.
Democrat Nathan Johnson's election as attorney general marks another blow to the anti-abortion movement. Paxton has been a powerful ally, leading efforts to progress the agenda in Texas and at the national level. Johnson has already said he will not prosecute out-of-state doctors who have allegedly provided abortion pills to Texans as Paxton has done, calling the practice "judicially absurd" in comments to The Texas Tribune.
Seago is confident that attorneys general in states like Louisiana and Florida would continue to push those lawsuits forward. But in Texas, Seago said he would lean on the ability to pursue private enforcement of the state's abortion laws.
"We're still going to use this private enforcement to enforce our laws and to go after those that are trafficking abortion pills into Texas," he said. "That's untouched. That doesn't have anything to do with the attorney general."
Seago said he is preparing to "play defense" at the Capitol to protect those laws. Groups like his and O'Donnell's expect a fight — but it won't be their first, O'Donnell said.
"Opposition is not new to us," she said. "We've long played the long game, and we'll continue forward undeterred."
Meanwhile, Kash said she's looking forward to playing some offense for a change. For her, that starts with working to mobilize other people in the state who have been affected by Texas' abortion bans and teaching them to engage with the legislative process.
"We have this opportunity now to not just have to defend against more attacks," Kash said. "We have an opportunity to really have the conversations that we need to have with lawmakers to explain the harms of these bans."
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