Every election, True Texas Project puts out a recommended slate of candidates, and right-wingers being the independent and opinionated people that we are, every election people get mad at us for not picking who they picked. That’s ok! We never want to tell anyone how to vote. We merely say our picks are a good starting point for your own research.
This 2026 election cycle is unique. In a few races, we actually have multiple stellar candidates to choose from. More often than not, we are forced to choose between the lesser of all evils. But for the 2026 Primary, in many races we have the tough decision of choosing the best of the best. It’s a good problem, and Texas can’t lose!
Here’s a list of our statewide endorsements so far:
- Nate Sheets for Texas Agriculture Commissioner
- Mayes Middleton for Texas Attorney General
- Don Huffines for Texas Comptroller
- Dawn Buckingham for Texas Land Commissioner
- Thomas Smith for Criminal Court of Appeals Pl 3
Let’s go through a few of those choices that people are asking about the most, namely Ag Commish, AG, and Comptroller.
WHY NATE SHEETS?
Sid Miller is the current Texas Ag Commissioner, and he’s been a good friend to True Texas Project. When we’ve asked him for support, he’s given it. When we’ve asked him to speak, he’s shown up. When we needed him to address a specific issue our supporters are facing, he’s been there. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of baggage with Sid as well. I’m not here to attack Sid — I consider him a friend – and so I won’t list the accusations, but they were enough to make us pause. And as we’ve preached for 17 years, we have to leave friendships and emotions out of our decisions and choose the best candidate for the job. In this case we chose Nate Sheets for Ag Commissioner because he’s a breath of fresh air! He’s old enough to have valuable wisdom and experience, but young enough to have energy and new, exciting – and vital – ideas for Texas. This is one of those times I’ll say Texas is in good hands regardless, but Nate Sheets has the edge in our opinion at True Texas Project.
WHY MAYES MIDDLETON?
The Attorney General race is getting a lot of attention (deservedly) because Texas currently enjoys the best Attorney General in the nation, Ken Paxton. Losing him hurts, so we want to be sure we get another good one elected. We’ve got three fantastic choices: Mayes Middleton, Chip Roy, and Aaron Reitz.
Many grassroots activists are going with Aaron Reitz. He’s incredible, and he’s endorsed by Ken Paxton himself, so that’s huge. Aaron is a bold fighter and would make a fantastic Attorney General.
The favored candidate leading all the polls by a mile is Chip Roy. Chip has an incredible resume covering all the needed areas of expertise, plus he has funding and name recognition, as well as some pretty impressive national endorsements by folks the grassroots love. Chip would also make a fantastic Attorney General.
The one True Texas Project chose is Mayes Middleton, and that has surprised some. Why Mayes?
When faced with 3 candidates we love and have great relationships with, we were forced to pick apart minor details to find one to settle on. I’m honestly not comfortable sharing those nit-picky details because they are just that: nit picky. All 3 are simply great candidates. Texas absolutely cannot lose no matter who wins this race (except for Joan Huffman, a 4th candidate we didn’t even bother to interview). We could have chosen to pick multiple candidates, but we all only get one vote at the polls, and we didn’t want to run away from a tough decision.
That being said, rather than list negatives about Aaron or Chip, I’ll simply tell you what impressed us about Mayes. First, Aaron and Chip are both bold in their sense of fight. When you speak to them, you know right away they will turn over tables, so to speak. Some have said Mayes isn’t “tough” enough, but we disagree. Mayes absolutely has that same fight in him. We’ve watched it in action session after session in the Texas legislature both as a State Rep and a State Senator. You don’t have to be loud to be effective, and Mayes has an executive demeanor that we believe is important for this executive position. On top of that, he’s spent the past 10 years writing, researching, defending, and voting on the very laws that will come before the State. Incidentally, this is the same background Ken Paxton had before being elected AG. While some have argued that Mayes has less legal experience, that was easily refuted during our interview with him, which you can watch here. (And as AG, he would have a large staff of attorneys actually going into the courtroom anyway).
More than any other race, this one has people reacting in very passionate ways; so, again, I want to reiterate that we love all 3 candidates and will be excited regardless of who wins. If you don’t agree with our pick, that’s ok! You don’t have to lambast us publicly, swear to never support us again, or harass us to change our minds. We respect your decision, and we ask you to respect ours. Here’s a short list of a few other endorsements Mayes has in case you find it helpful.
*always changing, but here are some of Mayes’s endorsements!
WHY DON HUFFINES?
Many of you recall some bad blood between TTP and Huffines. Your loyalty to us and the work we do together as grassroots meant the split included you too. Long story short, we had hosted a conference where he was supposed to speak, he didn’t like one of our speakers and was pressured to back out, and he did. Then he publicly made a negative statement about True Texas Project. It caused a serious rift with those who had loved and supported him in his run for Governor. So while we knew Huffines would be the best comptroller out of those running, we needed to make sure he understood how strongly we felt about what went down, and we needed an apology. We sat down with Don and had a fantastic conversation. He listened to everything we had to say intently, he accepted his role without excuse, and then not only did he apologize, but he made a substantial donation to help us continue doing what we do. In other words, he put his money where his mouth is. He also made a public statement of support. In friendships and in politics both, people let you down, and that can be hard. But we have chosen to give a little grace and offer a fresh start. And again, as we always preach, you have to leave the emotions out of the decision-making process when voting, and Don is clearly the best candidate for the job. We are grateful to leave the past behind us and forge ahead for Texas. We’ve given our endorsement to Don for this reason.
BUT WHAT ABOUT GOVERNOR?
I can only shoot straight with you, and I will be brutally blunt: Greg Abbott is a self-serving, manipulative piece of… work. We all know it. That’s why True Texas Project campaigned heavily against him last cycle. Sadly, with 3 viable challengers, he waltzed away with over 60% of the vote and not even a runoff. This time he has a war chest of $100 million!!! I know you’re gonna be mad when I say it, but there’s almost zero chance of beating Greg Abbott. With all the other races in front of us for positions that have a bigger impact than Governor, it’s simply not a race we’re going to put time and effort into. At True Texas Project we will maintain our mantra of “Anyone But Abbott” (Doc Pete Chambers and Mark Goloby are both great options), but we are under no illusions that Abbott will lose. We encourage you to not vote for Abbott, but we will not be including the Governor’s race in our win/loss stats for these reasons given.
There are a few other statewide races we haven’t made announcements about yet. Those will come in early December, so stay tuned. In the meantime, thank you for being an informed and active citizen!