Houston Sen. Joan Huffman Enters Texas AG Race

Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman on Monday announced her candidacy for Texas attorney general, becoming the third candidate aiming to replace outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton. 

She announced the news in a banner on her Senate campaign website, joanhuffman.com, promising that “additional details and campaign updates will be shared in the coming weeks.”

Huffman has been a senator representing Houston since 2008, and this session is serving as the chair of the Senate Finance Committee.

Before her tenure in the Legislature, Huffman was a Harris County prosecutor, leading cases involving gangs and felonies and serving on the Organized Crime Narcotics Task Force, according to her website.

Ken Paxton, the state’s sitting attorney general, will vacate his seat at the end of next year as he vies to unseat Texas Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary.

Huffman is the third Republican to enter the contest for attorney general. She will need to outdo a colleague in the Legislature’s upper chamber, Galveston Republican Sen. Mayes Middleton, and beat out a longtime fixture of the conservative legal movement in Texas, Aaron Reitz, a former top official in the U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump.