Meet The Candidates: Amy Martinez Salas For Texas Senate District 22

She grew up watching her mother hold a family together with nothing. Now she wants to do it for a district.

T

his series is called Meet the Candidates. Over the next three months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is Amy Martinez Salas?

Amy Martinez Salas learned about working families in Arlington by watching her mother work multiple jobs to keep the lights on after her mother immigrated from Michoacán and found out the hard way that this country doesn’t hand single mothers much of a safety net.

Martinez Salas’ older brother left school to help pay the bills. Her middle brother fought addiction. Those are the kinds of things that either break a family or teach it something. In Martinez Salas’s case, it taught her that people don’t need to be lectured about their struggles. They need someone who’s lived them.

Somewhere along the way, Martinez Salas figured out something a lot of Texas Republicans have never had to learn. Juggling bills, managing a family’s schedule, showing up to work exhausted and doing it again the next day, is management under pressure. Martinez Salas will tell you working women have been running things their whole lives.

She’s spent her career fighting for the people Austin likes to forget exist. Every Texan pays for that neglect eventually. They just don’t always know it.

Martinez Salas grew up watching her own mother hold a family together with grit and not much else, and that’s where she gets her theory of leadership. Women organize their way through impossible situations.

Martinez Salas’ pitch to voters is clean water, healthcare people can afford, public schools that aren’t gutted every session, and small towns that get to be more than an afterthought between Austin and Dallas.

She’s running because she thinks Texans deserve leadership that tells the truth even when it’s inconvenient, and because she’s tired of watching families get by instead of getting ahead.

The district.

This is the district I live in, and it’s pissed me off 🤬 since the day Republicans drew it, because it mixes a diverse/urban chunk of Tarrant County, specifically Mansfield and Arlington, with Waco and the sundown towns in Comanche County.

SD22 is built out of twelve counties, but don’t let that number fool you into thinking it’s balanced. Tarrant County only makes up 17% of the district geographically, but it’s carrying 359,569 of the district’s 960,493 residents, more than a third of the whole map, all crammed into the Mansfield and Arlington slice. The other eleven counties are Bosque, Comanche, Eastland, Ellis (partial), Erath, Falls, Hamilton, Hill, Hood, McLennan (that’s Waco), and Somervell. Every single one of those, outside Tarrant and McLennan, is 67% to 83% Anglo. This map exists to bury a diversifying urban core under a pile of rural counties that haven’t elected a Democrat since dial-up internet.

Districtwide, it’s 50.6% Anglo, 49.4% non-Anglo. Hispanic residents make up 25.3%, Black residents 17.5%, Asian residents 4.9%. But that districtwide number is doing a lot of work to hide how segregated this map actually is by design. Tarrant’s slice is 68% non-Anglo. McLennan is 46.4% non-Anglo. The eight rural counties are, on average, pushing 75-80% Anglo. Republicans drew this map to dilute a community.

Economically, the district trails the state on almost every marker that matters. Per capita income is $37,587 against a state figure of $40,752. Bachelor’s degree attainment is 30.3%, below the state’s 33.8%. Housing values average $331,288, about $35,000 under the state average. This isn’t a wealthy district propping up a red incumbent out of self-interest. It’s a working-class district that keeps getting talked into voting against itself, one shuttered rural hospital at a time.

Turnout in 2024: 64.1%, actually a hair above the state’s 61.3%. But Spanish surname voter registration sits at just 13.6% of the rolls, compared to 24.7% statewide. In a district where a quarter of the population is Hispanic, that gap is a target list.

In 2024, Trump beat Harris in this district 63.3% to 35.4%, a 27.9-point spread. Statewide, Trump only won by 13.7. Cruz beat Allred here 60.4% to 37.4%, a 23-point margin, compared to an 8.5-point statewide Cruz margin. This district ran about 14 to 15 points redder than Texas as a whole, on both the top of the ticket and the next one down.

Caveat. The Republican incumbent wasn’t on the ticket in 2024 (4-year terms), and the overlapping Democratic Congressional candidate lived out of district and was completely invisible.

Here’s where it gets interesting, and where the actual campaign lives or dies. Buried in the downballot numbers, the SD22 slice of House District 96, the Mansfield chunk of Tarrant, went for the Democrat 50.7% to 49.3%, even though that same Democrat lost the full HD96 race 34.3% to 65.7% districtwide. The SD22 portion of HD94 gave the Democrat 48.6%, a near dead heat, in a district Republicans hold comfortably overall.

(The last few SD22 candidates have strictly campaigned rural and ignored my advice to hit Tarrant County hard. Hopefully, Martinez Salas won’t.)

The Tarrant chunk of SD22 is actively blue in parts and competitive in the rest. The rural counties and even McLennan are what’s dragging the district average down to a 28-point Trump win. Strip Tarrant out and this map is deep, deep red. Strip the rural counties out and Tarrant alone could plausibly flip a legislative seat.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you a wave washes this seat blue on its own, because the math doesn’t support it. Erasing a 28-point presidential deficit or a 23-point Senate deficit in one cycle, even a good one, is not how swings work. Statewide waves move races 5 to 10 points. This district needs closer to 25.

So here’s what flipping SD22 actually requires, in order:

First, Tarrant has to turn out like its hair is on fire. The Mansfield and Arlington precincts are already performing better than the district average. That gap has to widen, not just hold.

Second, somebody has to get the missing Hispanic registrations. A 13.6% Spanish surname share of the rolls against a 25.3% Hispanic share of the population is an opportunity sitting on the table in McLennan, Falls, and Tarrant alike. Every unregistered Hispanic voter in Waco and Arlington is worth more to this race than another mailer to a Comanche County Republican who was never voting blue anyway.

Third, McLennan County needs real investment, not just Tarrant. Waco is nearly a 50-50 county on paper (53.6% Anglo, 46.4% non-Anglo) and it’s currently an afterthought in most statewide strategy.

Fourth, building infrastructure, registering voters, and running up Tarrant’s margins this cycle sets up a real shot in 2028 or beyond, especially as Mansfield and Arlington keep diversifying. Telling you this is an easy pickup because “it’s a wave year” would be lying to you.

The Republican.

Former Mansfield Mayor, now former HD96 Representative David Cook is running for this seat, since the previous SD22 incumbent Brian Birdwell took a job in Trump’s bootlicking department in DC.

He’s an anti-abortion hardliner. He voted to pass a bill banning all abortions after 6 weeks, with citizen enforcement. He sponsored a bill restricting public funding for logistical support for someone obtaining an abortion, and sponsored another banning medication abortions after 7 weeks while blocking the mailing of abortion medication. When Roe fell, he called it a “huge step forward to ensuring every unborn child is protected,” and he’s on record declaring himself “100% pro-life,” saying he has no doubt life begins at conception. He was endorsed by Texas Alliance for Life and the anti-abortion Life PAC.

He voted for school vouchers, the thing gutting rural school districts across this entire map. He voted yes on Senate Bill 2, which established the education savings account voucher program, over the objections of the Association of Texas Professional Educators. This is the same $10 billion pipeline of public money into private tuition that’s going to accelerate the shuttered-school problem we already flagged in Bosque, Hamilton, and Comanche counties. He helped build the machine that’s going to hollow out his own district’s small towns further.

He’s a Christian nationalist. He’s a member of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and previously served as its Texas state chair, and was named a 2023 GOPAC “Emerging Leader”. NACL is the organization pushing “biblical” legislation nationwide, and GOPAC is the national Republican machine that grooms exactly this kind of candidate for higher office.

In Amy Martinez Salas’ own words.

Below are some questions I asked Martinez Salas, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.

Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?

Texas should reform corporate tax abatements to ensure multi-billion-dollar corporations pay their fair share rather than shifting the state’s tax burden onto local homeowners. Any tax incentives provided must require strict accountability, transparent job creation guarantees, and direct investments back into local public infrastructure.

Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?

Yes. I strongly oppose school vouchers and any efforts to siphon taxpayer dollars away from non-selective public schools into private institutions.

Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?

Yes. Guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch to every K–12 student ensures that no child sits through the school day hungry, directly improving learning outcomes and classroom focus.

Q: Should Texas end tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for oil and gas companies, including exemptions from emissions reporting and waste disposal standards?

Yes. All industries operating in Texas should be held to strict regulatory standards, complete emissions reporting, and responsible waste disposal to protect our air, water, and public health. Closing corporate tax loopholes will ensure energy companies contribute their fair share toward maintaining state infrastructure and environmental safety.

Q: Do you support closing or downsizing state prisons and redirecting that funding to community-based alternatives like mental health care, housing, and youth programs?

Yes. Texas should reduce reliance on mass incarceration and redirect state resources toward diversion programs, addiction treatment, and accessible mental healthcare. Investing in community-based support and youth programs tackles the root causes of crime while making our neighborhoods safer and more resilient.

Q: Should local police be barred from enforcing federal immigration law?

Local law enforcement should focus strictly on protecting local public safety and building community trust, rather than being forced to act as federal immigration agents. Entangling municipal police with federal immigration enforcement discourages victims and witnesses from reporting crimes, making entire neighborhoods less safe.

Bonus Question: How do you plan to engage and energize young and working-class voters?

I plan to engage young and working-class voters by leading with relatable, lived experience and focusing on everyday economic issues like a $15 minimum wage, housing affordability, and expanding healthcare access. By meeting people directly in our communities on campuses, at job sites, and through digital platforms, I will build a campaign rooted in authentic, double-strength advocacy that proves local state politics directly impacts their daily lives.

A district built to be ignored and a Republican who’s spent his career making sure it stays that way.

David Cook didn’t invent the neglect baked into SD22. He just voted for every policy that keeps it running, vouchers that starve the small towns, abortion bans that treat women like they can’t be trusted with their own decisions, and a Christian nationalist pedigree that tells you exactly whose Texas he’s building.

Amy Martinez Salas isn’t promising to erase a 28-point deficit with a good speech. Her answers are corporate tax accountability instead of subsidy giveaways. Free school meals instead of hungry kids sitting through algebra. Police doing police work instead of moonlighting as ICE. A $15 minimum wage instead of another campaign that talks about working families without ever naming a number.

Whether this district flips in 2026 comes down to the math. Tarrant has to turn out harder than it ever has. Somebody has to get those missing Hispanic registrations in Waco and Arlington. McLennan County needs to stop being an afterthought.

I’ve watched this seat get contested by candidates who ran a rural strategy in a district that was never going to reward it. If Martinez Salas runs the campaign her own answers suggest, one grounded in Tarrant, honest about the odds, and specific about what people actually get out of voting for her, this stops being a symbolic run and starts being a building block.

You can learn more about Amy Martinez Salas on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

• 87 days until the November election!

• Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:

• Who Will Be On The 2026 State Ballot?

• Who Will Be On The 2026 Federal Ballot?

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.