At an Election Day watch party in a crowded East Austin bar, Travis County District Attorney José Garza watched as early results showed Gina Hinojosa pulling ahead of Gov. Greg Abbott. Through his black-rimmed glasses, he squinted at the TV and smiled.
For Garza, Abbott’s defeat is personal: It could mean less state intervention in his office. The three-term Republican governor, whose loss to Hinojosa on Tuesday sent shock waves across the nation, had proposed creating a chief state prosecutor who could monitor cases and take them over from local prosecutors.
“For the last six years, statewide Republicans have attempted to make me a central theme of their politics,” Garza told the American-Statesman. “I think what we saw on Tuesday is overwhelming evidence that that failed.”…