Longtime education advocate and UT alumna Montserrat Garibay will represent UT and West Campus in the Texas House of Representatives, according to Associated Press projections on Wednesday.
The seat is currently held by state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, who chose to challenge Gov. Greg Abbott for Texas governor instead of running for reelection. Hinojosa defeated Abbott on Tuesday.
Garibay immigrated from Mexico as a child and graduated from UT with her bachelor’s in 2004. She served as the assistant deputy secretary of the Office of English Language Acquisition in the U.S. Department of Education under the Biden administration. She was previously a bilingual Pre-K teacher at Austin ISD and a secretary-treasurer of Texas AFL-CIO, a state labor federation with over 240,000 union members.
With no Republican nominee in the race for HD 49, Garibay’s sole opponent was Green Party candidate Arshia Papari, a UT student studying government. Garibay out-raised Papari by over $500,000 throughout the campaigning period, according to the Texas Ethics Commission website.
As a state representative, Garibay will introduce and vote on laws during the upcoming legislative session. Some of Garibay’s top priorities during her campaign were increasing public school funding, affordable healthcare and labor rights.
Garibay ran against seven other Democratic candidates during the 2026 primary elections and won a May run-off election against Kathie Tovo, a former Austin city council member.
Garibay will assume office on the first day of the 2027 legislative session, Jan. 12, 2027, and will be up for reelection in 2028.
