This series is called Meet the Candidates. Over the next two 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 Eliz Markowitz?
Dr. Eliz Markowitz is a native Texan, a Katy ISD grad, raised in Fort Bend County by a teacher and an oil worker. She’s got a bachelor’s in Computer Science and Studio Art from Trinity, three master’s degrees (business, healthcare informatics, public administration), and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She currently teaches Public Health at the University of Houston and trains teachers nationally through the Princeton Review.
Markowitz has spent her actual career in the two systems HD26 voters care most about, healthcare and education.
And it shows in what she’s chosen to fight for. She’s spent years pushing to end Texas’s addiction to high-stakes STAAR testing, the standardized test that burns through millions of taxpayer dollars and instructional hours. She’s also worked directly with the Department of Health and Human Services on reducing adverse healthcare events.
Her pitch is not complicated. An economy that works for all Texans, healthcare people can actually afford, and an education system that supports the people inside it. That sounds obvious until you remember we’ve spent the last several sessions doing the opposite on all three counts.
The district.
This is a Fort Bend County district that, on paper, looks like exactly the kind of place the GOP’s entire suburban strategy was built to lose.
Nearly 58% of the district is non-Anglo. Hispanic residents make up about a quarter of the population. Black residents make up another 12-14%. Asian residents make up roughly 21% of the district, more than three times the statewide rate.
Per capita income here is $53,603, well above the state’s $40,752. Nearly 30% of households pull in $200,000 or more a year. Almost 60% of adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to under 34% statewide. This is 71% owner-occupied, with an average home value pushing $477,000, in houses that are mostly brand new, since 42.6% of the housing stock was built in 2010 or later. This is fresh, high-income, highly educated suburban sprawl, the exact demographic that’s been fleeing the GOP nationally since 2018 and taking their kids’ STAAR test scores with them.
This district isn’t even that red anymore, and the Republican incumbent is running ahead of his own party’s ceiling to survive. In 2024, Trump carried the district 56.3% to 40.9%. Ted Cruz did marginally better against Allred, 53.8% to 43.7%. But in the State Rep 26 race, incumbent Morgan beat Democrat Lee 59.2% to 40.8%. Down-ballot Democrat underperformed the top of the ticket by several points, while the Republican incumbent outperformed his own party’s presidential nominee.
So what does it take to flip HD26?
First, turnout capacity is already proven. These are voters who show up. The problem is persuasion and down-ballot awareness.
Second, Trump and Republicans nationally are underwater, and Hispanic voters are swinging back left. HD26’s Hispanic population is over a fifth of the electorate. Combine that shift with a Democratic wave year, and this looks more like a ceiling nobody’s tested yet.
Third, that Asian electorate is the single most underexploited bloc in this district. Asian voters have been trending Democratic in suburban Texas for years, and at 21% of the population, HD26 has more of them than almost anywhere else in the state legislature’s map. A campaign that actually shows up has room to move numbers here that Republicans have never had to defend.
HD26 is a district Republicans have been winning on autopilot because Democrats haven’t given wealthy, educated, diverse suburban voters enough reason. Close that gap and this seat flips because somebody finally ran a campaign worthy of the electorate that’s already there.
The incumbent.
Matt Morgan won HD26 by primarying out Jacey Jetton, a sitting Republican, over the vote to impeach Ken Paxton. Which means Morgan was further to the right. That’s his whole résumé bullet. Paxton personally backed Morgan to take out a Republican incumbent who tried to hold him accountable, on his 2024 revenge tour. Morgan won by double digits.
Then there’s the campaign bio. He wants you to know his family came over with Stephen F. Austin’s “Old 300” in 1825, that he’s an eighth-generation Texan, that his ancestor was a sheriff. It’s a dog whistle for Republicans. But we all know that.
Morgan has specifically complained that dead people were still on Fort Bend’s voter rolls twelve years after they died. But this is also a man building a campaign identity around voter fraud paranoia. He has no solid policy ideas.
Morgan carries a 93% score from Texas Alliance for Life, squarely in line with the session that defunded Planned Parenthood again, poured $200 million into crisis pregnancy centers dressed up as “family support,” and criminalized mailing abortion medication into the state. This in a district where Black maternal mortality and Hispanic uninsurance rates are already a documented crisis (the same crisis Markowitz’s own platform calls out by name). Morgan’s answer to that crisis was to make reproductive healthcare harder to access, not easier.
Morgan was there for the voucher session. He showed up to a Fort Bend legislators’ panel arm-in-arm with Buckley, the House sponsor of the voucher bill, celebrating the “Texas Two-Step” of pairing a modest public school funding bump with a $1 billion pipeline for private school tuition subsidies. In a district that is 71.8% public-school kids, siphoning state dollars toward private education.
In Eliz Markowitz’s own words.
Below are some questions I asked Markowitz, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.
Q: Do you support a statewide minimum wage increase to at least $15/hour?
Yes. If you work full time, you should be able to afford to live. Period. I support raising Texas’ minimum wage to *at least* $15 an hour and ensuring it keeps pace with the cost of living. Working Texans shouldn’t need two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?
Yes, especially when they’re just corporate giveaways. Texas families and small businesses shouldn’t be paying their full share while massive corporations get special deals. If a company gets a tax break, Texans should get good-paying jobs, local hiring, and investment in our communities in return. And if the company doesn’t deliver, neither should we.
Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?
Absolutely. Unequivocally. Public dollars belong in public schools. Period. I will fight any attempt to funnel taxpayer dollars from our neighborhood schools to subsidize private education. Texas should be fully funding our public schools, paying educators (and retired educators) what they deserve, and giving every child a great education, not dismantling public education one voucher or charter school at a time.
Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?
Absolutely. Kids cannot learn when they’re hungry. Period. Texas should provide free school meals to every K–12 student, regardless of income. We don’t need to make kids prove they’re poor enough to eat. Feed them. Let them learn. It really should be that simple.
Q: Should Texas end tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for oil and gas companies, including exemptions from emissions reporting and waste disposal standards?
Absolutely. Oil and gas companies don’t need special rules, special loopholes, or another taxpayer-funded giveaway. If you pollute in Texas, you should have to report it, clean it up, and pay for it. Period. Texans shouldn’t be left footing the bill while massive corporations pocket the profits.
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. If we can safely downsize prisons, we should. I’d rather put those dollars into things that can actually keep people out of prison in the first place: mental health care, substance-use treatment, housing, diversion programs, and youth services. Prison should be for people who are a real threat to public safety, not our answer when we’ve failed to address problems earlier. It also just makes fiscal sense. It costs a lot to keep someone incarcerated, and I’d rather use taxpayer dollars to prevent a crisis than pay for one afterward.
Bonus Question: Who are your political role models, living or dead?
Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards. Yes, I know. Very original for a Texas Democrat. But sometimes the obvious answer is the right one. Jordan had integrity, took public service seriously, and suffered no fools. Richards was smart as hell, funny, and had zero patience for bullshit. Neither woman seemed interested in performing for people. Neither woman adapted themselves to fit a mold. They knew who they were, said what they thought, and got to work. Those are my kind of people, and I’ll take that over polished political nonsense any day.
The choice, such as it is.
HD26 is a district that’s wealthier, more educated, and more diverse than the state it sits in, currently represented by a man whose main qualifications are lineage, loyalty to Ken Paxton, and a 93% pro-life scorecard in a district where women are already dying from a healthcare system that doesn’t work. Against him is a woman with more advanced degrees than most legislative committees combined, who’s spent her actual career doing the two things Morgan just talks about at panels.
Markowitz answered every policy question directly, a $15 minimum wage, ending corporate tax giveaways, universal school meals, closing the loopholes that let oil and gas companies pollute for free. Whether or not you agree with all of it, you know exactly where she stands. Morgan’s entire platform is border security, election integrity, and parental rights, three phrases that poll well and mean whatever the mailer needs them to mean that week.
Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards didn’t get where they were by being liked by everyone. They got there by saying what they meant and doing the work anyway. HD26 has spent years handing Republicans a seat nobody’s seriously contested. The district would just keep voting against its own interests forever. Come November, we’ll find out if they’re finally ready for a change.
You can find out more about Eliz Markowitz on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.
51 days until the November election!
Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:
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Thanks, Michelle! Just shared on bsky. I remember her & her opponent. Seems like a no-brainer to me.