Meet The Candidates: Angie Carraway For Texas House District 89

A teacher, a voucher champion, and a district that's not what it used to be

This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next four 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 Angie Carraway?

Angie Carraway was born in Dallas County but grew up in a military family and moved around a lot. Texas eventually pulled her back home.

Before she was a teacher, she was a hospitality worker. In 1996, she married Robert Carraway, and they built a life together in Collin County. She became the first person in her family to earn a college degree from the University of North Texas, and then she became a teacher.

For fourteen years now, she’s taught middle school social studies and history in Lovejoy and Princeton ISDs. She’s seen our state government failures in education up close.

Carraway is running because she’s watched the cost of everything go up while the people making decisions in Austin seem increasingly uninterested in the people actually living with the consequences. She’s sat with parents worried about how they’re going to make rent. She’s watched kids in her classrooms carry stress that has everything to do with what’s happening at home.

The district.

Collin County, and it’s not the Collin County of ten years ago. It’s young, it’s diverse, and it’s rich by Texas standards. Anglo residents make up 50.8% of the population, non-Anglo 49.2%, split between Hispanic (18%), Asian (14.7%), and Black (14.6%) residents. Nearly half of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher (47% versus 33.8% statewide). Per capita income is $49,186, compared with a state average of $40,752. Poverty sits at 6%, less than half the state rate.

This is white-collar suburbia. Almost a quarter of workers (24.7%) work from home, nearly double the state rate. The average home value is $490,474. Nearly 80% of housing is owner-occupied.

Trump carried HD89 by 17 points, 56.8% to 39.6%. Ted Cruz did worse, beating Colin Allred by 10.7 points, 54.1% to 43.4%. I don’t know if I would call that the baseline partisan lean, considering how low the Democratic turnout was in 2024.

Incumbent Republican Noble beat Democrat Evans 60.6% to 39.4%. That’s worse than Trump’s margin. That race didn’t have a lot of money, plus for whatever reason, Republicans still like Candy Noble enough.

I won’t sugarcoat this. HD89 is not a swing seat on paper. It’s a seat that requires closing a 21-point gap, not a 3 or 5-point gap. That’s a real climb, not a rounding error.

It’s name recognition. It’s a serious wave year. It’s a County Party that is drilling into voters to vote all the way down the ballot. A campaign that can replicate Allred’s performance with these voters, without Allred’s statewide infrastructure, closes most of that distance on its own.

The math from there is that this is a district full of exactly the kind of college-educated, high-income, work-from-home professional class that has been drifting away from the GOP nationally since 2016, if Democrats give them a candidate worth crossing over for. It’s also nearly half non-Anglo, with real Hispanic and Asian populations that Republicans currently bank without serious contest.

The incumbent.

Candy Noble (R) helped pass the school voucher bill. She has spent nearly every year in the Legislature playing culture-war games.

Here is Candy Noble defending incest:

She’s also the author of the Ten Commandments bill.

Here is a FANTASTIC clip from 2023, when Noble and James Talarico went toe-to-toe the first time she pushed the bill. (He mopped the floor with her.)

She’s also endorsed by the Texas State Rifle Association with an “A” rating from the NRA, and endorsed by Texas Right to Life, Texas Alliance for Life, and Texans for Life. So, guns are unrestricted, and abortion is banned. Standard-issue Texas GOP, force ’em to be born, then shoot ’em when they’re here.

That’s all there is to say about her.

In Angie Carraway’s own words.

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

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

Look, trickle-down economics is a farce. We have the 8th largest economy in the world. Enough is enough. If businesses want to come here, they need to pay their fair share of taxes, period. The working-class citizens in Texas don’t get a break, so why should large billionaire corporations?

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

With EVERY fiber of my being, I oppose the privatization of public education. Parents have ALWAYS had a choice on where to send their kids to school. There are robust charter and private school options in Texas. The 5.6 million public school children deserve a fair chance at education. The state should NOT be pushing its voucher scam on children in Texas that can deny children based on ANY reason!

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

YES! It is a proven fact based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that a child’s basic needs MUST be met before learning occurs. So let’s feed the children!

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

Capitalism should never compromise basic environmental principles. There should never be a question of profits over principles. We only get one Earth, let’s not deplete its resources before they can be renewed.

Q: Do you support publicly financed elections to reduce corporate and PAC influence?

I definitely think there needs to be limits on what can be raised to limit the amount of corruption. It does cost money to have voter contact, no doubt. But the embarrassingly amount of money in my opponent’s bank account makes me question what her motives are in governance.

Bonus Question: Who are your political role models, living or dead?

There is not one person I can limit myself to when it comes to political role models. I adore anyone who. Relieves in fighting for the principles of honesty and integrity. Someone who stands up for the marginalized communities and ensures that every hard working American gets a chance of the American Dream!

HD89 is not an easy pickup, nobody’s pretending otherwise.

But look at what’s actually sitting in this district. A professional class that keeps drifting away from a party that’s decided the Ten Commandments belong on a whiteboard and incest deserves a defense. A non-Anglo population that’s pushing half the electorate, and nobody’s bothered to organize seriously. A Democratic candidate who spent fourteen years in the classroom, while Candy Noble answers to the most extreme.

Angie Carraway isn’t running because the math is easy. She’s running because somebody has to make Candy Noble defend this record to the people actually living under it.

Collin County isn’t the county it was ten years ago. At some point, its representation should catch up.

You can learn more about Angie Carraway on her website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky.