Paxton had the slimmest margin of victory of any statewide Republican in his last re-election race in 2018, just barely toppling Democrat Justin Nelson with 3.6 points between them. “Paxton goes into this race with a lead, but I don’t think that it’s a fait accompli,” said Jason Villalba, chairman and CEO of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and a former Republican state lawmaker.īACKGROUND: Texas State Bar sues AG Paxton for ‘dishonest’ challenge of 2020 election resultsĪ poll by his foundation in April found in a hypothetical match-up that Paxton was ahead of Garza by about six percentage points. Garza handily defeated former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski 63-37 in the primary runoff last month. Yet even with the odds largely in Paxton’s favor, some political experts say Democrat Rochelle Garza, a 37-year-old Latina civil rights attorney from Brownsville, is the party's best chance at eking out its first statewide win in almost 30 years, given his rising legal challenges.