Greg Abbott Racist Lies Texas

Greg Abbott Says Gina Hinojosa 'Supports Sharia Law.' His Evidence Is a Muslim Civil Rights Group's Endorsement.

Nine days before the election, Abbott told Fox News his Democratic opponent backs Sharia law because the Council on American-Islamic Relations endorsed her — a group he branded a terrorist organization with reasons lifted from an anti-Muslim think tank's report.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 26, 2026

On Sunday, nine days before Election Day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott went on Fox News and told viewers that his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, wants Islamic law in Texas.

"Gina supports that endorsement that she got from them because she supports Sharia law, she supports Sharia communities," Abbott said, according to The Hill. "What I'm focused on doing is making sure that we ban Sharia law, Sharia cities, Sharia compounds."

"Them" is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR — the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country — which endorsed Hinojosa. That endorsement, and one vote, are the whole case. The Hill reports that the accusations of her ties to the group stem from Senate Bill 1900, which Hinojosa voted against. That was a 2023 state law about foreign terrorist organizations, signed by Abbott; it didn't name CAIR. Abbott's own proclamation labeling CAIR a terrorist group came two years later and drew on it.

So the logic goes like this. Abbott calls a Muslim group terrorists. The group endorses his opponent. Abbott says his opponent therefore wants Sharia law.

Abbott's terrorist label came from a hate group's research

Abbott first branded CAIR a "foreign terrorist organization" by proclamation in November 2025, as he kicked off his fourth run for governor. Texas Monthly later obtained more than 1,300 pages of his office's emails and found that twelve of the proclamation's thirteen points include details from a report written by a fellow at a think tank the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an anti-Muslim hate group. The proclamation's most serious charge — that the FBI called CAIR a "front group" for Hamas — was traced back to that report. No FBI agent said it at the trial where it supposedly came from.

That is the label Abbott is now hanging on Hinojosa, by way of an endorsement.

He never "banned Sharia law" either

Abbott's promise to "ban Sharia law, Sharia cities, Sharia compounds" is one he has been making for over a year. The law he signed that he describes as a Sharia ban is about how business entities own homes in a development. The words "Sharia," "Islam" and "Muslim" do not appear in it once. It was aimed at EPIC City, a planned Muslim community near Dallas — and the Justice Department later closed its investigation into that project.

Abbott's office went further than talk. It handed the state securities regulator a secret memo laying out ways to use government power against the East Plano Islamic Center; his own team found no securities case. This summer he threatened to review the state and federal grant money of the Dallas and Houston airports over foot-washing stations that Muslim travelers use before prayer.

There is no Sharia takeover in Texas for Hinojosa to support. There is a governor who has spent a year running against one.

It's the closing message

Abbott's campaign released an ad the same day calling Hinojosa "dangerous" and "radical." His communications director, Catherine Frazier, said in a statement that Hinojosa "supports deadly open-border policies, higher taxes, and even wants to give illegal immigrants taxpayer-funded healthcare."

It isn't the first time this race that Abbott's campaign has invented a version of Hinojosa to run against. In September, a campaign-run X account posted a photo of her talking with a child about a closed school — with a transgender pride flag added to the table that wasn't in the original.

Republicans are running the same play in other states this fall. In Michigan's Senate race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had to push back on claims that he is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood; he has denied ever being a member. By March, Republicans had already spent more than $10 million on TV ads attacking "Sharia" or "Islam" — most of it in Texas.

What the record shows

Greg Abbott told Fox News that Gina Hinojosa "supports Sharia law" because a Muslim civil rights group endorsed her and she voted against a 2023 state law on terrorist organizations. Abbott's terrorist label for CAIR tracks a report from an anti-Muslim think tank, and the "Sharia ban" he signed doesn't mention Sharia at all.