Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaking at FreePac, hosted by FreedomWorks, in Phoenix, Arizona. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

Gov. Greg Abbott’s longtime political strategist appears to be grasping for straws — and drawing criticism for being “creepy” — as he scours for dirt on state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for the state’s top elected office.

During an exchange earlier this week on social media platform X, Dave Carney — Abbott’s top campaign consultant for at least a decade — asked another user to supply him with photos allegedly showing Hinojosa “partying” as a high schooler attending a swim party.

The unsettling online back-and-forth began Tuesday in comments on a post by Texas Tribune journalist Kayla Guo, who reported on former President Barack Obama’s campaigning alongside Hinojosa and State Rep. James Talarico in Austin.

X user @ArrestedAustin commented that he knew Hinojosa when she attended Hanna Early College High School in Brownsville during the ’90s.

“Gina used to party hard when she was at Hanna, I believe there’s an old box with polaroids back at my mom’s house, a bunch of us would go swimming at the resaca off 281!” @ArrestedAustin wrote.

Carney then urged @ArrestedAustin to “please share” the photos of Hinojosa and her teenage friends.

“Just 90s teens doing valley stuff, partied in Matamoros a lot too,” @ArrestedAustin responded.

Hinojosa’s campaign declined to comment on Carney’s request for photos of the teens.

Indeed, asking for photos of underage girls at a swim party doesn’t appear to be the best look for a political strategist considering the controversy that continues to swirl around President Trump and the Epstein Files.

It also makes Carney, who’s built a career guiding cutthroat political campaigns, look desperate for something — anything — that might cast Hinojosa in a negative light.

Which is fair, considering recent polling shows Abbott trailing Hinojosa by 5 percentage points, despite having amassed a $100 million-plus war chest for his campaign.

Keep on digging, Carney.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...