This material was originally published by Reform Austin.

Graphic by Reform Austin.

Loading the

Elevenlabs Text to Speech

AudioNative Player…

Texas state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat from Austin, announced Monday that she will run for Congress in the state’s newly drawn 10th Congressional District, a seat long held by Republican Rep. Michael McCaul , who recently said he will not seek reelection in 2026.

“Join the Campaign for Common Ground,” she wrote in a post announcing her race.

“Our Founding Fathers declared a revolution against one-party rule in a government that they had no say in. But they worked hard and found common ground among 13 original colonies that were very different,” Eckhardt said during her campaign announcement. 

The district, redrawn this summer, includes a larger portion of Democratic-leaning areas in Austin but remains majority Republican. It stretches from Travis County through Bryan-College Station and into East Texas.

Eckhardt, who has represented parts of Travis County in the Texas Senate since 2020, previously served as Travis County Judge and County Commissioner. 

Acknowledging the political challenge, Eckhardt said she would rely on voters who are frustrated by partisan divisions.

“I’ve spent most of my adult life in Austin, and that’ll come up, but in reality, I’m a public servant who came up through local government,” she said in an interview  “Now I’m in the state government and we really need this federal partnership, and we’re not getting federal partnership right now. We’re going in the wrong direction.”

Issues such as health care costs, the rising cost of living, and access to education will be central to her campaign.

Several Republicans have already entered the race, including Chris Gober, an attorney for Elon Musk who helped Musk’s political action committee raise more than $200 million for Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Eckhardt, 61, said she hopes to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans disillusioned with partisan politics.

“We’re seeing a growing number of people feeling unmoored from their party, Democrat or Republican,” she said. “I think a lot of people who lean Republican threw a protest vote for Trump because they thought that it would change something. Well, it has, but it’s changed it for the worse.”

If elected, Eckhardt would follow in the footsteps of her father, the late Bob Eckhardt, who represented a Houston-area district in Congress from 1967 to 1981. 

“I’ve been training in public service since I could walk,” Eckhardt finalized.