The 2026 Texas general election is a reminder that a ballot is much bigger than the presidential or U.S. Senate race at the top. On November 3, Texans will vote on members of Congress, statewide executive offices, judges, legislators, county officials, school officials and local governmental boards. According to the Texas Secretary of State, Election Day is November 3, with early voting running from October 19 through October 30.
I went through my ballot by office rather than simply voting straight down the ticket. That matters because these jobs are fundamentally different. A senator makes federal law. A comptroller produces revenue estimates and administers state tax functions. A judge interprets and applies the law. A county clerk administers records and elections. A school-board member helps oversee public education.
So instead of starting with the question, “Who do I like?” I started with a more concrete one: What experience, record and stated priorities does each candidate bring to the job they are seeking?
That approach led me to the following candidates.
U.S. House, Texas District 2: Shaun Finnie
Shaun Finnie's professional background is concentrated in economics, law and energy-sector finance. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics, a law degree and an MBA in finance and accounting from Northwestern University. Before running for Congress, he worked as an oil-and-gas lawyer and then spent roughly three decades in investment banking, primarily working on energy-sector mergers and acquisitions.
That experience is particularly relevant in a congressional district and a state where energy, economic development, financial markets and household affordability are closely connected. But Finnie's background isn't limited to the private sector. He has served on the John Cooper School Board of Trustees, created an investment club for high-school students and taught personal finance to young Texans for seven years.
His campaign has identified affordability, health care, Social Security and Medicare, education and student debt as major priorities. Taken together, his professional and community record gives voters a fairly direct way to evaluate how his experience could translate into federal policymaking, particularly on economic and energy-related issues.
U.S. Senate: James Talarico
James Talarico comes to the U.S. Senate race after four terms in the Texas House and an earlier career as a public-school teacher. His two years teaching sixth-grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio became an important influence on his legislative work, and education has remained one of the central subjects of his time in the Legislature.
According to the Texas Tribune, Talarico introduced nearly 200 bills during his four House terms, with 16 becoming law. Eight of those involved education, child care or workforce development for young people. His legislative record has included measures addressing pre-K class sizes and legislation making Narcan available on school campuses. His earlier Whole Student Agenda also addressed school mental-health services, suicide prevention, financial literacy, civics and sex education.
More recently, Talarico has turned attention toward another issue with statewide implications: the rapid expansion of data centers. In 2026, he proposed additional regulation of data-center development, arguing that communities should have a greater role in determining how that growth affects electricity, water and local infrastructure.
Whatever voters ultimately make of those positions, his record provides something concrete to examine. His public career has been built around education, youth policy and, increasingly, the effects of economic development on communities.
Governor: Gina Hinojosa
Gina Hinojosa brings experience as a Texas House member, attorney and civil-rights and legal-services attorney to the governor's race. Her professional background includes work with AFSCME, Kator Parks & Weiser, Catholic Charities' Office of Immigrant Concerns, Texas Rural Legal Aid and the Equal Justice Center.
In the Texas House, public education has been one of her major policy areas, along with health-care funding, corporate reform and public safety. During the 2026 campaign, she has also put affordability and state economic policy at the center of her platform.
One of her most specific proposals is a $1,500 one-time payment to every Texas household, funded through the state's Economic Stabilization Fund. Her campaign estimated that the proposal would cost approximately $17 billion. The fund stood at approximately $24.8 billion in November 2025, according to the Texas Tribune, meaning the proposal would have drawn down roughly two-thirds of the balance at that point. The proposal would require legislative approval.
Hinojosa has also called for a moratorium on new data centers until lawmakers establish additional community protections and has criticized tax incentives connected to data-center development.
Those proposals are ultimately questions for voters to evaluate. What makes them relevant here is that they are specific enough to examine in terms of cost, funding source, implementation and potential effects rather than simply being broad campaign themes.
Lieutenant Governor: Vikki Goodwin
Vikki Goodwin is a state representative from Austin who won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in the May 2026 runoff.
The lieutenant governor's responsibilities make legislative experience particularly relevant to this race. The lieutenant governor presides over the Texas Senate and has substantial influence over the chamber's agenda and committee structure. Goodwin therefore would be moving from one legislative chamber to a statewide office with significant authority over the other.
Her existing House record, her positions on state policy and her description of how she would use the lieutenant governor's authority over the Senate provide voters with a record to examine rather than evaluating the office solely through its partisan label.
Attorney General: Nathan Johnson
Nathan Johnson is a third-term state senator from Dallas County and an attorney and mediator with Thompson Coburn. He has served in the Texas Senate since 2019.
The legal component of his background is especially relevant to the Attorney General's Office, which serves as the state's chief legal representative. Johnson has described his campaign as an effort to restore public confidence in the office and has emphasized an anti-corruption platform.
His candidacy has also received support from two former Republican Texas Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican governors. Those former justices have argued that the attorney general's responsibilities should be considered primarily through the legal functions of the office rather than partisan identity. Their endorsement is evidence of their support for Johnson, not an independent determination of his qualifications.
The most concrete part of Johnson's background is the combination of professional legal practice and legislative experience he would bring to an office whose responsibilities are heavily legal in nature.
Commissioner of Agriculture: Clayton Tucker
Clayton Tucker grew up working on his family's ranch in Lampasas and has worked in trade and agricultural policy advocacy. His campaign has emphasized preserving family farms, reducing food costs, addressing chemicals and microplastics, regulating PFAS and examining the growth of data centers.
The Agriculture Commissioner's responsibilities extend considerably beyond the traditional image of farming. The Texas Department of Agriculture administers programs involving food, agriculture, rural economic development and consumer protection. Tucker's agricultural background and policy advocacy therefore correspond directly with several areas overseen by the office.
There is also a legal issue surrounding the race that voters should distinguish from the candidate's policy positions. Texas law requires an Agriculture Commissioner candidate to have been engaged in “the business of agriculture” for five of the previous ten years. Tucker's attorneys have argued that his Republican opponent does not meet that requirement. That is a contested eligibility claim rather than an established fact about the opponent, and it is important to keep that distinction clear when evaluating the race.
Comptroller of Public Accounts: Sarah Eckhardt
Sarah Eckhardt brings experience from both state and county government to the comptroller's race. She has served in the Texas Senate since 2020 and previously served five years as Travis County Judge. Before entering elected office, she worked as a prosecutor.
The comptroller's responsibilities make that combination of experience particularly relevant. The office collects state taxes, manages hundreds of state contracts and produces the revenue estimates that help lawmakers determine how much money is available when writing the state budget.
In other words, the position requires more than familiarity with state politics. It involves public finance, government administration and forecasting. Eckhardt's legislative, county executive and legal experience gives voters several concrete areas from which to assess her preparation for those responsibilities.
Railroad Commissioner: Jon Rosenthal
The Texas Railroad Commission has not regulated railroads since 2005. Its principal responsibility today is regulating the state's oil and gas industry.
Jon Rosenthal is a mechanical engineer, longtime oil-field professional and four-term member of the Texas House. His campaign has focused on issues including oil-field pollution, wastewater disposal and regulation of emerging energy-related infrastructure.
That background gives voters a direct connection between his professional experience and the industry overseen by the commission. His engineering and oil-field experience can be evaluated alongside his legislative record and his stated positions on energy regulation.
General Land Office: Benjamin Flores
Benjamin Flores brings a somewhat different professional background to the General Land Office race. He has approximately 30 years of experience in cybersecurity and compliance, including work focused on protecting county government from fraud and systemic errors.
After moving to Bay City in 2016, he established a 10-acre family business raising heritage-breed pigs. He was elected to the Bay City City Council in 2023 and has served on the Bay City Development Corporation and represented Bay City on the Houston-Galveston Area Council.
That gives voters several different pieces of experience to consider: government compliance, local government, agriculture and regional planning. The relevance of each depends on which responsibilities of the General Land Office a voter considers most important.
Texas Supreme Court
Judicial races require a different kind of examination than executive or legislative races. Judges do not campaign on the same kinds of legislative agendas as lawmakers. Their professional histories, judicial experience, legal specialties and records therefore become especially important.
Chief Justice: Maggie Ellis
Maggie Ellis currently serves on the Texas Third Court of Appeals after being elected in 2024. Her legal background includes private practice, prosecution with the Travis County District Attorney's Office and service as an Administrative Law Judge.
She is board-certified in juvenile law and a certified specialist in child-welfare law. Her courtroom experience has included family law, contracts, federal education law, violent-felony cases and parental-rights proceedings.
That breadth of legal experience gives voters several concrete aspects of her background to examine when considering her candidacy for the state's highest civil appellate court.
Place 2: Chari Kelly
Chari Kelly has served on the Third Court of Appeals since January 2019. Before joining the appellate bench, she worked as a felony prosecutor in Travis and Comal counties and as an assistant attorney general in the Texas Attorney General's Civil Medicaid Fraud Division, where her work included pharmaceutical litigation.
Her combination of appellate judicial experience, prosecution and state-level civil litigation provides a professional record directly connected to the work of an appellate judge.
Place 7: Kristen Hawkins
Kristen Hawkins is the Democratic nominee for Texas Supreme Court Place 7. The certified state ballot lists her against incumbent Justice Kyle Hawkins.
Because this is an appellate judicial race, her legal experience, professional record and publicly available judicial qualifications are more useful measures to examine than broad political rhetoric alone.
Place 8: Gisela D. Triana
Gisela Triana is the Democratic nominee for Texas Supreme Court Place 8. She previously spent more than 23 years as a trial judge across Texas courts, including 14 years as judge of the 200th District Court, and later served on the Third Court of Appeals.
Her experience includes both civil and criminal matters. That combination of lengthy trial-court experience and appellate experience is particularly relevant to the work of the Supreme Court.
One ballot clarification is worth making: Triana belongs in this Supreme Court section. The Texas Secretary of State's certified ballot lists her for Supreme Court Place 8, not for Harris Central Appraisal District.
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is the state's highest court for criminal matters, which makes criminal-law experience particularly relevant when evaluating candidates for the court.
Okey Anyiam has been licensed to practice law in Texas since 1997 and practices criminal defense in Dallas. His campaign says he has represented thousands of individuals in proceedings involving trials, dismissals, plea bargains, rehabilitation and diversion programs. That gives voters a substantial criminal-defense background to examine in relation to the court's jurisdiction.
Audra Riley currently presides over Dallas County Criminal District Court No. 3. She was first elected to that position in 2020 and previously worked as both a prosecutor and criminal-defense attorney. Her experience therefore spans both sides of the criminal courtroom as well as judicial service.
Holly Taylor has spent more than 17 years as a prosecutor and has worked in criminal appeals, public integrity, complex crimes and conviction-integrity matters. She previously served as a staff attorney and rules attorney for the Court of Criminal Appeals, is board-certified in criminal appellate law and has taught advanced legal writing at the University of Texas School of Law.
The certified ballot lists Anyiam for Place 3, Riley for Place 4 and Taylor for Place 9. Those candidates bring different forms of criminal-law experience to the same court, which makes their individual records more useful to examine than treating the three races as interchangeable.
Texas Courts of Appeals
The same principle applies to the Texas Courts of Appeals. Appellate judges work from the records created in lower courts and determine how Texas law applies to those cases. Legal experience, appellate experience, written opinions, trial experience and professional standing therefore provide useful information for voters.
My selections include Jerry Zimmerer for Chief Justice of the 15th Court of Appeals, along with Thomas Baker for Place 2 and Marc Meyer for Place 3.
For the First Court of Appeals, my selections include Veronica Rivas-Molloy for Place 3, Julie Countiss for Place 4 and Amparo Guerra for Place 5.
For the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, they include Sarah Beth Landau for Chief Justice and William Demond for Place 7.
The Texas judicial-race information I reviewed identifies these candidates as Democratic nominees in their respective races. But party identification tells only part of the story in judicial elections. For these positions, I would pay particular attention to actual appellate experience, years practicing law, trial experience, written opinions, judicial records where applicable, State Bar standing and any publicly documented disciplinary history.
Harris County Courts and Government
The farther down the ballot you go, the easier it becomes to overlook races that can have very direct effects on everyday government.
My ballot includes candidates for Harris County Attorney, County Clerk, District Clerk, Treasurer and County Judge, along with civil courts at law, criminal courts at law, probate courts, district courts, the Harris County Department of Education, Emergency Services District 9, municipal utility districts, Klein ISD, the North Harris County Regional Water Authority, the Old Town Spring Improvement District and other local offices.
These positions are not interchangeable. A criminal-court judge's professional record should be examined differently from a county clerk's. A school-board candidate should be evaluated through education governance, budgets and oversight. A municipal utility district candidate should be examined through water infrastructure, contracts, finances and district administration.
For example, the Harris County election information identifies Erica Davis as the Democratic nominee for Harris County Department of Education Place 5 and Silky Joshi Malik as the Democratic nominee for Place 7. It also identifies Teneshia Hudspeth as the Democratic nominee for County Clerk.
The county judicial candidates on my list include Abbie Kamin, Sonia Lopez, Ebony Williams, LaShawn Williams and Manpreet Singh for Civil Courts at Law.
For Criminal Courts at Law, my list includes Alex Salgado, Juanita Jackson, Sedrick Walker II, Ashley Guice, Raul Rodriguez, Yahaira Quezada, Tonya Jones, Matthew Perez, Carlos Aguayo, Shannon Baldwin, David Fleischer, Kelley Andrews, Andrew Wright, Erika Ramirez and Toria Finch.
For Probate Courts, the candidates are Jessica Phillip, Jerry Simoneaux, Pamela Medina and Jason Cox.
The District Court candidates on my list are Anne Morrow, Rabeea Collier, Tanya Garrison, Stephanie Morales, Julia Maldonado, Katherine Thomas, Andrea Beall, Tamika Craft, Beau Miller, Beverly Armstrong, Brian Warren, Alyson Almaguer, Chris Morton, Josh Hill, Lauren Reeder, Angela Lancelin, Angela Graves-Harrington, Janice Berg, Hilary Unger, Sandra Peake, Lori Chambers Gray, Cory Sepolio, Dedra Davis, Damiane Curvey, Christine Weems, Donna Roth, Gloria Lopez, Linda Marie Dunson, Sonya Heath, Germaine Tanner, Teresa Waldrop, Samantha Davis, Michelle Moore, Leah Shapiro, Veronica Nelson, Tiffany Hill, Ramona Franklin, Breanna Schwartz and the other candidates listed on the certified ballot for the applicable districts.
The sheer number of judicial and local-government races is exactly why I think a candidate-by-candidate review is more useful than relying on assumptions about an entire ticket. These offices have different legal responsibilities, different budgets and different forms of authority. The relevant experience for one position may have little bearing on another.
What I Am Actually Looking For
Taken together, the candidates on my list reflect a particular way of approaching a long ballot. I am not trying to reduce every race to Democrat versus Republican, and I am not treating incumbent versus challenger as a shortcut for deciding who belongs in office.
I am looking for documented evidence that is relevant to the actual job.
For executive offices, that means looking at management experience, policy proposals, budgets, regulatory knowledge and previous government service. For legislative offices, it means examining bills introduced and passed, committee work, votes and stated policy priorities. For judges, it means looking at legal education, years licensed, trial and appellate experience, opinions, courtroom experience, judicial administration and professional conduct. For county and local offices, it means looking at the particular responsibilities of that position, whether those involve elections, public records, finances, infrastructure, courts or education.
It also means separating three things that are often blended together during elections: what is documented, what a candidate promises and what voters think those facts mean.
The first can be researched. The second can be compared with the candidate's actual record and with the legal and financial realities surrounding a proposal. The third belongs to each voter.
That is what makes a long ballot manageable for me. I don't have to know everything about every candidate before I begin. I can start with the office, understand what the job actually does, examine the evidence about the person seeking it and then decide whether that experience and those stated priorities align with what I want that particular office to accomplish.
For me, that is a more useful way to approach a Texas ballot than treating every race as a referendum on the person at the top.
And with early voting beginning October 19 and Election Day on November 3, there is still time to do the same kind of research for the races farther down the ballot.
Sources and verification
The Texas Secretary of State's election calendar is the primary source for the 2026 election dates and deadlines. The Texas Tribune provides additional reporting on candidates and campaigns, while Texas Courts and the State Bar provide primary-source information for judicial and attorney credentials. For local races, county election authorities and the applicable governmental entities provide the most direct information about candidates, districts and office responsibilities.
