This is the top lawyer for the State of Texas, and since 2014 the role has been held by Ken Paxton, best known for his own personal legal and ethical controversies and his attacks on vulnerable communities. Paxton is now running for U.S. Senate so this is an open seat. This office has the power to enforce consumer protections and it would be great to have someone who's actually focused on that, not suing drag queens and families of trans kids.

Jaworski was formerly mayor of Galveston, and Nathan Johnson has served as a Texas State Senator since 2019. I softly leaned toward Jaworski in the March primary, but now in the runoff I am softly leaning the other way for a few reasons...

Initially I gave Jaworski the edge for being the more progressive choice (honestly mainly on the recommendation of the Texas Progressive Caucus, who I usually agree with).

Here's why I shifted now that we're in the runoff...

Some of the claims against Johnson not being progressive enough are due to one of the practical side effects of being a member of the minority party in the Texas Senate... you don't always have the luxury of ideological purity if you want to actually accomplish anything. So leftist purists won't agree with his every vote, understandably so. And Jaworski simply has less of a record to scrutinize, having only served as mayor.

In recent days, enormous sums of money have gone into the runoff on the Republican side for this seat, and whoever wins THAT race is clearly going to have a ton of financial support. On the D side, Johnson has proven to be the better fundraiser, which will be really important in a general election where neither of the Democratic candidates have much name recognition statewide and the Rs are so well-financed.

Another point for me in Johnson's favor is that I know how hard he has worked as a state senator to protect the environment (he's worked closely with my old colleagues at the Texas Sierra Club). I think it would be really powerful to have someone in the AG's office (an office that could go after polluters if they wanted to!) who is already very well-informed on environmental issues in the state.

I also really liked Johnson's responses in this Texas Tribune interview: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/23/texas-2026-attorney-general-democrats-runoff-nathan-johnson-joe-jaworski/