Democratic Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson on Tuesday announced a bid to succeed outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is taking on Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Republican Senate primary.
Johnson is the first Democrat to launch a campaign among a growing field of Republican contenders vying for Paxton’s place ahead of the 2026 election.
“After years of corruption and abuse of the office, misplaced priorities, and bad management, Texas needs an AG who can meet the present moment – with strength, independence, and a genuine commitment to serve the people of Texas,” the Dallas Democrat said in a statement announcing his campaign.
Johnson, who is in his third term in the Texas Senate, faces an uphill battle in the race to be the solidly red state’s next chief prosecutor. Three Republicans have already entered the race, which a Democrat hasn’t won since 1994.
During an interview this week with the Texas Tribune, Johnson made overtures to independents and centrist Republicans as he seeks to flip the attorney general’s office blue.
“I’m not going to use the office to do what the Biden administration says or what the Trump administration says,” he said. “I’m going to use the office to do what it’s supposed to do, which is to make sure that everybody knows the rules and that everybody follows the rules, and then if you don’t follow the rules, there’s consequences.”
Two other state senators, Joan Huffman and Mayes Middleton, are running in the Republican primary, alongside former Justice Department lawyer Aaron Reitz. James E. “Trey” Trainor III, a Texas Republican commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, also weighed a bid as a fourth candidate, but announced last week he had decided to stick with his job at the federal agency.
Huffman, who hails from Houston, is the state’s lead budget writer. She has used her background as a former prosecutor, with 13 years as an assistant district attorney in Harris County, to champion bail reform.
“The attorney general is the lawyer for the state and every state agency as well. As the person trusted to write the state budget, I know the ins and outs of every facet of state government,” Huffman wrote when she announced her candidacy last month.
KEN PAXTON INVESTIGATING OVER 100 POSSIBLE NONCITIZEN VOTERS IN 2020 AND 2022 ELECTIONS
Reitz, a former Marine who recently led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy and has built a campaign as a MAGA candidate, has painted her as a liberal. Reitz has close ties to President Donald Trump and has allied himself with Paxton, as he was the attorney general’s legal strategy adviser.
Meanwhile, Galveston-based Middleton, a first-term Republican state senator, was recently ranked the second most conservative member of the Texas Senate by a study from the Texas Tribune. Middleton, the president of an independent oil and gas company, is known as an immigration hawk and an advocate of school choice.
