Texas Attorney General race tests long-running party loyalties

The upcoming race for the Texas Attorney General seat in the midterm elections will be slightly different from previous election cycles. For nearly three decades, Republicans have controlled the attorney general’s office. And for the first time in more than a decade, Texans will elect an attorney general who is not Ken Paxton.

The role comes with a salary of $153,750.

Paxton, who has held the office since 2015 and was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 on corruption-related charges before being acquitted in a Senate trial, is not seeking reelection, leaving an open seat that pits Republican State Senator Mayes Middleton against Democratic State Senator Nathan Johnson. Libertarian Tom Oxford and Omer Khwaja (independent) are also running.

In a sit-down interview with the Defender, Johnson explained his campaign priorities. Middleton’s campaign team did not respond to the Defender’s request for an interview for this article.

Q & A with Johnson

Middleton casts himself as the natural successor to a conservative office, while Johnson argues that the office itself has been eroded and needs to be restored, regardless of who wins in November.

“The office has lost the trust of the people,” Johnson said in an interview. “It’s partly due to recent scandals with Ken Paxton…it’s been a systematic loss of trust dating back probably before Ken Paxton… People expect the Attorney General’s office to be a productive place. It’s there to protect them from federal overreach, corruption in politics, and abuse in the commercial sector. All of those things have been sidelined.”

Johnson has represented Senate District 16 since 2019. A lawyer with a physics degree from the University of Arizona and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, he has worked as a litigator and mediator.

The Democratic nominee argues his legal background shapes how he views the attorney general’s job. His career choices have spanned the Texas Capitol and music studios. The lawmaker’s résumé also includes composing music for “Dragon Ball Z.”

What are his plans?

Stating plans for the office if elected, Johnson said he expects to sue federal government agencies if they violate the Administrative Procedure Act or overstep constitutional bounds, citing, as one example, the administration’s withholding of federal education funding appropriated for Texas schools, which other states’ Democratic attorneys general have already challenged in court.

Asked to back up his campaign priorities in healthcare and the electric grid, Johnson pointed to Senate Bill 1296, a 2021 measure Johnson authored. It asked for a review of the insurance plans offered to Texans through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace to reduce net premiums and make health insurance more affordable for uninsured residents.

Having served on the Business and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC), Johnson has filed legislation on the electrical grid load growth. Pointing to the grid, he noted a dearth of steel and transformers needed to keep it running.

He also plans to review the Texas consumer-protection law for gaps related to AI-driven scams and data privacy, if elected.

Johnson’s stated priorities include suing sanctuary cities, aggressively enforcing federal deportation orders, defending the state’s abortion restrictions, opposing transgender participation in women’s sports, cracking down on what he calls “rogue” district attorneys, enforcing Texas voter ID laws, and pursuing a “DOGE Texas” initiative aimed at rooting out government waste. Notably, Middleton voted to acquit Paxton during his 2023 impeachment trial in the Senate.

Election history in Texas points to a trend that favors Middleton.

The #1 law my Democrat opponent says he will not enforce is the Women’s Privacy Act I passed. 

It’s common sense that men should not be in girl’s restrooms and locker rooms. As Attorney General, I will fight to enforce this law and make sure Texas is the best and safest state… https://t.co/tSWGu0AGqw

— Mayes Middleton (@mayes_middleton) August 27, 2026

An uphill statewide race

No Democrat has won a statewide contest in Texas since 1994, and the attorney general’s office in particular has been in Republican hands since Democrat Dan Morales left office in the late 1990s. John Cornyn flipped the seat for the GOP in 1998, defeating Democrat Jim Mattox, and it has stayed red through Greg Abbott’s tenure and Paxton’s three terms. Both campaigns are treating the election history as something to either defend or break.

The 2026 election will test whether the streak of Republican candidate wins continues.

Johnson, however, said in the interview that he has heard similar arguments about political odds before.

When he first ran for the Texas Senate in 2018, Johnson challenged Republican incumbent Don Huffines in a district Johnson said was expected to favor Republicans by 12 points.

“I had no connections. I didn’t have money, name ID, wasn’t famous,” Johnson said. “But I felt like I could beat him.”

The race was “written off until very, very late in the cycle” before he won by eight points, he added, “And I aim to pull off a similar result this time around on a statewide basis.”

What do Black voters think of Johnson?

A new poll by Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, which surveyed more than 500 Black Texans, 20% of those surveyed favor Johnson, and 8% do not, while an overwhelming majority of 72% do not know enough about him.

Johnson says he is looking to change that by visiting historic Black communities in Houston.

“I’m visiting and engaging with communities right now, particularly in the Black community, where there’s no one on the statewide system,” Johnson told the Defender. “It’s very important for Black voters to feel like there’s someone who listens to them, who talks to them, and who understands what’s happening, who directs their interest.”