Meet The Candidates: Orlando Lopez For Texas House District 33
She checked her box. He's trying to do the work.
This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next six 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 Orlando Lopez?
Orlando Lopez is a construction project manager, a South Texas native, and someone who came to politics by watching things get bad enough that doing nothing stopped feeling like an option.
He grew up in a working family in the Rio Grande Valley. He went to Hidalgo High School, got a construction science degree from Texas A&M, and spent the next decade building a real career in an industry that actually builds things. By 2020, he was the youngest project manager at his company, running complex development projects across DFW.
He lives in Heath now with his wife, a former public school teacher and counselor, and their daughter.
Lopez began seriously considering a run in the summer of 2025 after watching teachers, parents, and workers push back against what he describes as mounting attacks on healthcare, education, and personal freedoms. An October rally tipped him over the edge. He decided to stop watching and start running.
The district.
HD33 covers 100% of Rockwall County and a small sliver of Collin County. The Collin slice is more diverse, with 54.5% non-Anglo and a significant Asian population at 21.7%. The Rockwall portion is much whiter at 65.1% Anglo. When you blend them, you get a district that’s 57.4% Anglo overall, with Hispanic residents at 19.4% and Asian residents at 11.7%.
It’s a white-majority suburban district that is diversifying, particularly through its Asian and Hispanic populations.
Economically, HD33 is solidly affluent. Per capita income is $54,032 versus $39,446 statewide. Nearly half of adults 25+ have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33% statewide. Median home values average $444,936. Over 59% of households earn six figures. This is not a working-class district. It’s professional-class suburban DFW.
The 2024 numbers are ugly, but not hopeless.
Trump carried the district 61.4% to 35.5% for Harris, which sounds like a blowout. But the statewide Republican performance context matters, Trump won Texas overall at 56.1%, meaning HD33 ran about five points redder than the state average. That’s the gap.
The most interesting number in that election report is that Congresswoman Julie Johnson won the portion of HD33 that falls in (the old maps) TX32 with 53%, outperforming Harris by roughly 17 points in the same geography. That’s candidate quality and campaign infrastructure doing real work.
HD33 was uncontested in 2024.
What would it actually take?
First, the Asian voter opportunity is underutilized and significant. At 11.7% of the population, concentrated heavily in Collin County, this is a persuadable bloc that went heavily Democratic in 2020 and has been drifting since. A candidate with a serious AAPI outreach strategy could move numbers here in a way that other demographics in this district won’t move as easily.
Second, the Julie Johnson effect is real and reproducible. The gap between her performance and the top-of-ticket Democratic performance shows there is a ceiling above the floor. The district has moderate suburban voters who will split tickets for the right candidate. Lopez’s background, professional, family-oriented, not ideologically maximalist in his framing, fits that profile for this district.
Third, the math of turnout matters more than persuasion here. 143,220 registered voters turned out, representing 69.5% of the electorate, which is actually high for a Texas legislative race. The low-hanging fruit of “missing voters” is smaller than in other districts. The path here runs more through persuasion of independents than through mobilizing non-voters, which makes candidate quality even more decisive.
The incumbent.
Kansas native Katrina Pierson is known as one of the “Founding Mothers” of the Tea Party Movement. She was a Trump spokesperson in her 2016 campaign. She’s affiliated with the Heritage Foundation.
During 2016, she spread so much misinformation that Trump opponents started the social media campaign #KatrinaPiersonHistory to blame Obama for historic events like the Hindenburg explosion sarcastically. Needless to say, lying comes as easily to her as breathing.
Pierson was reportedly involved in organizing the January 5 and 6 rallies in Washington, DC, and was in direct communication with Trump about them. The January 6 committee subpoenaed her and specifically wanted to know about a January 4, 2021, meeting in the Oval Office, where Trump asked whether another rally could be arranged for figures like Roger Stone to speak. She didn’t face charges, but neither did most of the worst of them.
She didn’t run for TX33 as a community candidate. She ran on a nearly $500,000 check from Tim Dunn’s PAC and another $450,000 from Greg Abbott, with the promise of passing vouchers. Pierson does not have school-age children. But you better believe she voted to pass school vouchers in Texas.
And now that she accomplished the literal only thing her seat was bought for, who knows what good she’s for?
In Orlando Lopez’s own words.
Below are some questions I asked Lopez, based on previous reader polls, along with his answers.
Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?
Absolutely. It’s one thing to provide these subsidies and abatements for new, small businesses. It’s another thing to offer them to large corporations that already have established ways of making their profits, especially without clear returns for taxpayers.
Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?
Absolutely. Our tax dollars should not be going to families who can already afford private schooling. These dollars should remain with our public schools, ensuring that educators are well paid and our students are properly funded.
Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?
I grew up in the RGV and thought this was already the norm. I didn’t realize at the time that my school was Title I. Those meals made a real difference for my family. Yes, I absolutely believe all public schools should offer free meals to every student.
Q: Should Texas end tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for oil and gas companies, including exemptions from emissions reporting and waste disposal standards?
Yes. We should be holding these companies accountable, especially when it comes to our environment and public health. They don’t need more tax breaks; they need competition through investments in renewable energy, while still supporting Texas workers through that transition.
Q: Do you support publicly financed elections to reduce corporate and PAC influence?
Yes. As long as corporations and PACs can spend massive amounts influencing elections, candidates will continue to feel pressure to prioritize those interests over the needs of everyday people.
Bonus Question: Who are your political role models, living or dead?
Eligio “Kika” de la Garza. He was born and raised in Hidalgo County, just like I was, and became one of the first Mexican-American Texans elected to Congress. James Talarico, a current state representative, is another political role model who inspired me to run. He brings a level of thoughtfulness and compassion that we need more of in Texas politics.
HD33 is not on anyone’s target list.
It’s not supposed to be competitive. It’s a wealthy, majority-Anglo, suburban district where Republicans run unopposed and nobody bats an eye.
That’s exactly why it matters.
Katrina Pierson didn’t win HD33 because she earned it. She won it because nobody showed up to stop her. She had Tim Dunn’s money and Greg Abbott’s endorsement, walked in uncontested, cast her voucher vote, and checked the one box she was sent to Austin to check.
Orlando Lopez is making a different bet. That professional suburban voters in a diversifying district will respond to a candidate who actually lives there, works in the real economy, and isn’t running on a national brand and a PAC check. That AAPI voters in the Collin County slice are persuadable and underserved. That the ceiling is higher than the floor, and that somebody willing to do the work can close the gap.
Will it be enough in 2026? 🤷🏻♀️ But the point of running in a district like this is to make the incumbent spend money, build infrastructure, put names on doors, and make the case that this district is contested territory.
Democrats have been waiting for Texas to change on its own for twenty years. It doesn’t work that way. Change requires candidates willing to run where it’s hard, and voters willing to back them.
Orlando Lopez is running where it’s hard. The rest is up to the district.
You can find out more about Orlando Lopex on his website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
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This is why I love you. You teach me so much. I know all the district but of course not the east side of Dallas, although I know them all on the West.
This guy sounds fabulous to me over the detestable incumbent! The Collin County part is quite close to me & I can't stand Pierson!!! Shared on bsky with enthusiasm!!!