Meet Vikki Goodwin, Nathan Johnson and the other Democrats who’ll run Texas

Down-ballot Democrats — vastly outspent by Republicans and overshadowed by their party’s candidates for Senate and governor — will take statewide office in January with ideas for countering the GOP’s decades of dominance.

They’ll also be reintroducing themselves to Texans, including many of the voters who supported Democrats in a blue tsunami election simply because they didn’t have an “R” beside their name on the ballot.

Here’s a look at who’ll be running Texas for the next four years.

Lieutenant governor

Vicki Goodwin, who upset Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick after the Houston Republican had spent nearly two decades in office, has a history of flipping GOP seats.

Goodwin was first elected to the Texas House in 2018 when she defeated Republican Rep. Paul Workman, a four-term incumbent.

Consistently ranked as among the most liberal House members by Rice University political science professor Mark Jones, Goodwin has served as whip, or vote wrangler, on behalf of the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus.

Policy positions:

• Supports increasing public school funding and teacher pay.
• Calls for expanding Medicaid and creating a statewide health program.
• Supports regulating THC with age restrictions, testing and labeling requirements.
• Supports investing in water infrastructure and water recycling.
• Calls for passing the Fair Rent Incentive Act to lower housing costs.
• Wants to repeal the state’s abortion ban.
• Has supported a moratorium on data center development.
• Called for limits and accountability for ICE agents after the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.

Attorney general

Democrat Nathan Johnson will succeed Ken Paxton as Texas attorney general.

The upset has national implications: until Tuesday night, Texas had the largest red-state attorney general’s office in the country, providing a uniquely powerful voice in shaping conservative legal strategies by suing the federal government to block Democratic initiatives and policies.

Johnson, a Dallas state senator since 2019, pledged to refocus the attorney general’s office on state-level issues rather than culture war fights. He also, however, has promised to use the agency to take on Trump administration policies “that are harming the economy, tearing apart communities, and eroding the foundations of our democracy.”

Johnson is a corporate litigator and mediator with a Dallas-based law firm and was among the Texas Senate’s most prolific Democrats, passing bills on water, the power grid and healthcare.

He’s also known for composing musical scores for the anime series Dragon Ball Z.

Policy positions:

• Said he would sue the federal government over “border policy and tactics that violate the U.S. Constitution.”
• Wants to champion and enforce Texas laws that protect consumers and promote competition among businesses.
• Said he would independently investigate and prosecute elected officials “irrespective of political party” to root out corruption.
• Favors investing in the office’s bureaucratic functions, such as collecting child support, issuing legal opinions that clarify the law, and ensuring government transparency.
• ​​Told The Texas Tribune that he would invite the offices’ 4,000 employees to re-apply for jobs and that “anyone working for Paxton in pursuit of a partisan ideological agenda will need to look for work somewhere else.”

Comptroller

Austin-area state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt defeated Don Huffines, who was appointed to the role by Gov. Greg Abbott in the summer.

Eckhardt, a senator since 2020, is a former prosecutor for the Travis County attorney’s office who also spent five years as Travis County judge, or top executive.

Born and raised in Texas, she’s the daughter of former Texas U.S. Rep. Bob Eckhardt and has consistently ranked among the most liberal Democrats in the Texas Senate, based on her voting record. 

Eckhardt also has been a vocal critic of top state Republicans, accusing Patrick of using his lieutenant governor position “as his church, as his pulpit.” In 2019, she came under fire for saying Abbott “hates trees because one fell on him.” She later apologized.

The Texas comptroller is the state’s chief financial officer, collecting sales taxes from local governments, managing hundreds of state contracts on behalf of other agencies and providing forecasts of the state’s revenue and economy to help state lawmakers draft the state’s two-year budgets. The office is also in charge of implementing a new $1 billion program that will offer families taxpayer-funded vouchers to send their kids to private schools and pay for educational expenses.

Policy positions:

• Wants the office to focus on ensuring Texans are safe, not on polarizing social issues.
• Vows to root out government corruption and stop no-bid contracts to wealthy donors.
• Wants to audit Texas’ new school voucher program and has said lawmakers should hold off on expanding the program until her office can investigate where the money is being spent.
• Backed a moratorium on data center development.
• Spoke out against a change requiring proof of legal immigration status to get professional licenses.

Land commissioner

Texas’ oldest state agency will be led by Democrat Benjamin Flores, who defeated incumbent Dawn Buckingham.

Flores, who runs a family business raising heritage-breed pigs in Bay City, was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. in 1996.

The cybersecurity expert will be in charge of the General Land Office, which manages 13 million acres of land and the state’s mineral rights.

Flores has warned about the impact of climate change, particularly along Texas’ 367-mile coastline, and strongly opposes school vouchers, arguing they undermine the constitutional mission of public lands to fund public education.

Flores also has condemned Buckingham, saying she has used GLO resources to obtain and transfer land to support border and immigration enforcement.

Policy positions:

• Says he would encourage data center development on leased state-owned land to protect rural residents from environmental and quality-of-life impacts.
• Proposes land swaps to incentivize building more affordable housing in his plan for the GLO office.
• Prioritizes protecting and maximizing revenue from the Permanent School Fund, a state endowment used to fund public schools, by ensuring GLO-owned lands benefit public schools.
• Wants to streamline disaster response by accelerating debris removal and contract approvals for relief services.

Agriculture commissioner

Clayton Tucker is the first Democrat to be elected agriculture commissioner since 1986, overseeing the agency’s $1.8 billion budget.

The Lampasas rancher serves as secretary of the Texas Farmers Union and has worked as a water and agriculture researcher for the National Science Foundation. He defeated Republican Nate Sheets.

He has promised to protect Texans from the growth of data centers by making information about resource consumption more available and by setting up Agricultural Development Districts “so that locals can fight back.”

Policy positions:

• Preserve family farms.
• Lower the cost of food and remove chemicals from food.
• Stop the spread of microplastics and regulate dangerous chemicals like PFAS.
• Wants farmers to be able to grow hemp and believes it could save Texas farmers.
• Wants to rebuild agricultural co-ops in Texas to make farming affordable and profitable.

Railroad commissioner

Jon Rosenthal will join the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, after beating Republican Bo French in one of the state’s most vitriolic statewide races.

A career oilfield mechanical engineer, Rosenthal served four terms representing north-central Houston in the Texas House.

He has vowed to rigorously enforce industry regulations and has criticized the Railroad Commission and the Trump administration for doing the bidding of oil and gas industry executives.

Policy positions:

• Repurpose wells that no longer produce oil and gas for new industries, such as geothermal and carbon dioxide storage, and augment well-plugging efforts.
• Hire community liaisons for the Railroad Commission in every region of Texas and expand language access to include Spanish and Vietnamese, among others.
• Only permit flaring and venting — the burning of gas to prevent buildup in pipes — in “true emergencies” with enforcement timelines and support for smaller operators.
• No new permits for companies that violate rules.

Disclosure: Rice University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune within the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.