How Nearly Dying of COVID and Husband's Brain Surgery Shaped Texas Radio Reporter's 'Joy' Run for Governor

Sandra Dahdah

A year ago, Joy Diaz struggled to breath due to a serious COVID-19 infection.

"I truly thought I was going to die," the former journalist, 45, tells PEOPLE in a recent phone interview during a campaign stop in her race for governor in Harlingen, Texas, near the southern border.

Diaz recalled "just gasping — gasping — for air" at her home in Austin, where she'd worked for years at the public radio station KUT as a reporter and producer. "Faced with my mortality, I thought, 'Have I done everything that I can to change this state?' And the answer was no."

So once Diaz recovered, the married mom-of-two told her employer she would leave her job in November to run for governor of Texas. She announced her candidacy in December, joining a race so far dominated by fellow Democrat Beto O'Rourke and incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Unconcerned that she may have bitten off more than she can chew by taking on a pair of titans in Texas politics, Diaz said aiming for the state's highest office was the only option she considered in her quest to do more for her state.

"Where else can you make meaningful changes?" she says. "My heart burns for Texas as a state. Maybe because I was a statewide reporter ... That's why I just thought the most meaningful thing that I can do is to serve as governor."

And then life, as it does, intruded.

Two days after she threw her hat in the ring, Diaz was at her first political event in Laredo when she got a terrifying call. Her husband, Luis, had been in a bicycle accident. Two days after that, she was with him at the hospital where he had emergency brain surgery.

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"He's doing well and recovering nicely," she tells PEOPLE now, adding that wearing a helmet saved her husband's life.

Diaz spent the first month of her candidacy taking care of him. "If I were a politician, I would think, 'Oh, that's a setback,' but I am a Texan," she says. "Like everybody else, I'm struggling with everyday life, with health insurance, with home challenges, with children in schools."

Though she admits there was a moment of hesitation, when she asked herself if it was smart to run for political office it was her husband's support that convinced her that she'd made the right decision.

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"The first thing he said when he opened his eyes was, 'You're not stopping, right?' And I said, 'No, but I am pausing,' " Diaz says. "The state needs changes. Big, big changes. We understand that as a family, and we are willing to make every sacrifice to get it done."

Though she faces an uphill battle as the Democratic primary on March 1 nears, Diaz believes her qualifications and certain attributes make her qualified for the job.

She'll explain. "All the men that we have had as governors apparently cannot walk and chew gum," she says. "As a woman, I have been able to walk in high heels and chew gum and raise two beautiful, well-educated, healthy individuals and keep a clean house, so I can do that."

Sandra Dahdah

Being the mother of two kids — Camila, 14, and 11-year-old Fausto — means Diaz has learned to juggle multiple responsibilities. "You don't have a priority with your children. Your children need to be well fed. They need to be well cared for. They need to be clean. They need to be presentable. They need to be well educated. They need to be respectful," she says. "In the same way, I don't have a priority for the state of Texas. I have many priorities for the state of Texas, and all of them need to be taken care of.

Health care, reproductive rights, criminal justice reform, education, state preparedness and immigration are all addressed by the platform Diaz is running on as a Democrat hoping — perhaps correctly, perhaps not — that the state's trend toward purple previews its eventual flip to blue. (Republicans hope to preserve the state's conservative roots.)

That last issue is where Diaz, who was born in Mexico, also sets herself apart from other major candidates in her race.

"I am a bi-cultural, bilingual Texan," she says. "I have a deep sense of love and respect for both Mexico and the United States."

Her mother is Mexican (and a Republican) and her father is Puerto Rican. They were both missionaries in Mexico City and instilled in her a deep Christian faith, according to a Texas Monthly profile.

Sandra Dahdah

While Gov. Abbott has gone to the border to decry and address what he calls a crisis of immigrants who arrive without proper supervision or care, Diaz sees things very differently along the Rio Grande river.

"That vilification of the border, it's so disrespectful. And it makes me think that we need someone who understands both countries and who can communicate with both countries to say, 'Our border is gorgeous,' " she says. "It's one of the most coveted spots on the planet. I don't believe that there's a crisis. I believe there's mismanagement. I believe there are chaotic responses. I believe that Greg Abbott blaming [President Joe] Biden, who has been in office for one year when Greg Abbott has been here for a decade, it's just political posturing."

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As for O'Rourke, with whom she is competing in a long-shot bid for the Democratic primary, Diaz insists her fight is not with him.

"I'm running against Greg Abbott," she says. "Beto O'Rourke just happens to be running for the same position."

She also calls O'Rourke a "good man" and mentions that she interviewed him in the past when she was a reporter. "I believe that I am a better candidate because I see the world not as black and white," she says. "I see Texas not as Republican or Democrat. I see it as a place that needs to come together so that we can push forward."

Sandra Dahdah/ZUMA Press Wire

Which brings us back to Diaz's Republican mother. "I will never speak ill about Republicans," she says, adding, "My brother-in-law is a gun owner, a gun collector. I will never speak ill about gun owners or gun collectors." (It's a veiled reference, perhaps, to O'Rourke's comments about the same group.)

Her campaign slogan — "Texas needs Joy" — may be a riff on her first name, but it also reflects her intention, she says, to unite fellow Texans for progress and problem-solving, regardless of political party, religion or any other facets of identity.

"Not everybody needs to be a liberal. Not everybody needs to be conservative," Diaz says. "We need to be who we are. We just need to come together."

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If that seems almost too good to believe, well, Diaz is down to try.

"Oh God, yes, yes, yes. You have to [believe in miracles]," she says. "I still believe in miracles because why do we have to do everything the traditional way?"

Sandra Dahdah

That also goes for her underdog campaign — which she called an "unshakeable dream" when it launched — and whatever happens once all the votes are counted.

"I don't think the unshakeable dream is wrong," she says when asked how her mission might endure if she loses. "Perhaps it is the right time for the dream. Perhaps it is not the right time for the dream. Perhaps it is the dream that somebody else completes."

No matter what the future holds, Diaz admits that leaving her job to run for governor is only one of the wildest things she's ever done.

"This — and traveling with a circus with my children," she says.

"My husband has an aunt who was a folkloric dancer in Mexico," she explains. "She ended up marrying a man who owned a circus in Europe and, so, he has a circus family. We traveled with their circus when Fausto was 5 and Camila was 8. We spent a summer packing every night and unpacking every morning and doing a circus show every afternoon. And that's probably the craziest thing we've ever done."