Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson of Dallas won Tuesday’s race for Texas attorney general, beating Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton, the author of the state’s 2025 bathroom law. The Associated Press declared Johnson the winner early Wednesday, Nov. 4, KXAN reported. “I can’t think of anything more profound to say than Texas flipped tonight,” Johnson told supporters at his watch party, according to KXAN.
The last Democrat in the job was Dan Morales, attorney general from 1991 to 1999, KERA reported. “There is some damage to undo,” Johnson told KERA in an earlier interview.
Ken Paxton, who has run the office for nearly 12 years, lost his U.S. Senate bid to Democrat James Talarico, the AP reported in a race Gayety tracked on election night. Republicans “got their asses handed to them tonight,” Johnson said, KXAN reported.
Will Attorney General Nathan Johnson Enforce the Bathroom Law?
Middleton authored Senate Bill 8, which has limited trans people’s access to multi-stall restrooms and locker rooms in public schools and other government buildings since Dec. 4, 2025, The Texas Tribune reported. Institutions must take “every reasonable step” to comply, and the attorney general’s office investigates complaints.
Paxton’s office opened an online tip line for those complaints in December 2025. “The Attorney General has tried for years to vilify and dehumanize transgender Texans,” ACLU of Texas attorney Brian Klosterboer said in a statement, the Tribune reported then.
Johnson has named SB 8 as a law his office wouldn’t put resources behind, and Middleton went after him for it on the trail, the Tribune reported in October. “Whereas Paxton’s approach was sue, investigate, put out a press release with an irresponsible headline, every six hours,” Johnson told the paper. “After eight years of culture wars and base drum-beating bravado, people are anxious about their lives,” he said.
Paxton’s PFLAG Records Demand Goes Back to Travis County
On Feb. 9, 2024, Paxton’s office ordered PFLAG to hand over records on its work with families of transgender kids, NBC News reported, calling it part of an investigation into medical providers offering gender-affirming care to minors despite the state’s 2023 ban. Travis County District Judge Amy Clark Meachum blocked the demand that March, finding a “substantial likelihood” that PFLAG would win at trial.
“PFLAG families in Texas gained further protection today when the court reaffirmed that the Attorney General can’t two-step around the law with an outrageous demand for private information,” PFLAG CEO Brian K. Bond said after the ruling.
In March 2026, the Texas Supreme Court overturned the order that had largely blocked those requests, The Texas Newsroom reported. It said the office can demand PFLAG’s referral lists of providers and its communications about families’ “contingency plans,” then sent the case back to a Travis County court. The ruling did not approve every request. Some internal documents remained protected, and the attorney general agreed to redactions preserving families’ anonymity.
As attorney general, Johnson could switch the state’s side in Paxton-era cases or drop them, the Tribune reported. “I would not make it a political stronghold,” he told KERA. A change in enforcement priorities would not repeal the laws themselves.
In August, a federal judge in Houston again barred the attorney general from enforcing SB 12, the state’s 2023 drag law, the ACLU of Texas said. “Today’s decision confirms that the Legislature’s attempt to ban drag performances was unconstitutional from start to finish,” Klosterboer said in the group’s release.
Paxton’s Texas Children’s Hospital Deal and Its ‘Detransition Clinic’
In May, Texas Children’s Hospital agreed to pay $10 million and open what Paxton’s office called the country’s first “detransition clinic,” Axios Houston reported. The hospital, under investigation since 2023, also agreed to stop gender-transition care for minors, though it said it had complied with the law.
In its settlement announcement, Paxton’s office said doctors had been fired. The settlement required the clinic to open by the end of October, and Paxton’s office announced Oct. 27 that it had.
“It’s terrifying what other states will take from this,” Andrea Segovia of the Transgender Education Network of Texas told The Texas Tribune, Axios reported.
The ‘Dragon Ball Z’ Composer Taking Over Paxton’s Office
Johnson, a former corporate litigator at Thompson Coburn in Dallas, won his state Senate seat in 2018. He also composed music for the anime “Dragon Ball Z,” the Tribune reported. “It could be as powerfully good under the right leadership, as it has been powerfully bad under Ken Paxton,” Johnson said of the office at a Democratic primary debate, according to the Tribune.
Middleton called Johnson to concede Tuesday night, the Tribune reported. He’d vowed at the Conservative Political Action Conference to “use every resource and tool to back up President Trump,” according to KERA. GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser told the Tribune the party’s losses were “about something bigger than the candidates we put up or the races they ran.”
Johnson’s term starts Jan. 1, 2027, and Texas law says he takes over “on, or as soon as possible after,” that date.
