Meet The Candidates: William Marks For Texas Congressional District 25

A veteran’s bid to unseat a corporate congressman.

This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next ten 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.

Note: We missed yesterday’s two-fer, so we’re catching up. I’ll have the breakdown of this weekend’s election data tomorrow.

Who is William Marks?

William Marks is a combat veteran, a career public servant. After 22 years in the Navy and six years in the private sector at Meta, William and his family chose Texas as their home. Like many military families, they moved more times than they can count before finally putting down roots here.

He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1996 and spent more than two decades navigating ships around the world, managing crisis communications at the Pentagon, and representing the United States on the global stage. After leaving the military, William brought that same commitment to public service into the private sector at Meta. In 2025, he founded Operation Caged Bird to provide banned books to students at the Naval Academy.

The district.

TX25 put the G in gerrymandering. On paper, it’s a winnable seat held together by turnout gaps, partisan sorting, and a decade of Democratic underinvestment. The district is built around a large portion of Tarrant County and smaller rural counties stretching west. Demographically, it’s far more competitive than most people realize.

The voting-age population is only about 51% Anglo, with Black and Hispanic voters making up more than 43% of eligible voters. This is not a deep-red stronghold. It is a plurality-white district held together by turnout patterns, not by overwhelming Republican numbers.

The problem in TX25 is participation. In midterms, it drops into the mid-40s. That gap is where Republicans win. Anglo voters turn out at consistently high rates, while Black and Latino voters turn out at lower rates because they are contacted less, invested in less, and treated like an afterthought by campaigns that assume the seat can’t be flipped anyway.

So what will it actually take to flip TX-25?

First, you have to win Tarrant County by a lot. This is where Taylor Rehmit just swung a district by 35(ish) points left. That is where the bulk of the district’s population lives, and it’s where Democrats have real room to grow. Any winning campaign must be built like a serious Tarrant operation. A campaign that treats TX25 like a collection of rural counties with a little bit of Fort Worth sprinkled in will lose.

Second, you have to close the turnout gap inside the existing coalition. The voters are already there. Flipping the seat requires registering, engaging, and mobilizing Black and Latino voters who have been ignored for years. That means culturally competent outreach, real investment in Spanish-language organizing, and a ground game that lasts months.

Third, persuasion matters. TX25 can be won with a strong, working-class economic message that speaks to the real concerns of suburban swing voters, like rising healthcare costs, public schools, property taxes, veterans’ services, and basic economic fairness.

Fourth, Democrats don’t have to win the rural counties. They just can’t get crushed in them. Cutting margins, targeting specific communities, and turning out the small but real Democratic base in those areas can shave thousands of votes off the Republican advantage and make the Tarrant performance decisive.

That’s the path.

The incumbent.

Illinois-native Roger Williams is just about everything wrong with modern Texas Republican politics. Williams has represented TX25 since 2013, but done absolutely nothing for working families while voting in lockstep with corporate donors.

He inherited a car dealership fortune, used his personal wealth to buy political power, and then spent his career voting to protect the interests of wealthy people just like him. He has repeatedly supported tax cuts for billionaires, opposed efforts to lower prescription drug costs, and voted against expanding affordable healthcare. When Texans worry about rising property taxes, insurance premiums, and school funding, Roger Williams responds by making life easier for corporations and harder for everyone else.

He has also become one of the most reliable Trump loyalists in Congress. Williams voted to overturn the 2020 election results after January 6. He backed efforts to gut voting rights protections. He has cheered on extreme culture-war bills while doing nothing to address real issues like infrastructure, rural hospitals, teacher pay, or the skyrocketing cost of living.

While Texans struggle with overcrowded classrooms, unaffordable healthcare, and wages that don’t keep up with rent, Williams votes for corporate tax breaks and calls it leadership. While veterans fight to access benefits they earned, he grandstands for cable news. While families in this district worry about their kids’ future, he spends his time auditioning to be the most loyal soldier in Trump’s army.

William Marks also has a primary opponent.

In William Marks’ own words.

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

Q: Do you support universal, publicly funded healthcare (i.e., Medicare for All or a similar single-payer system)?

Yes. We must fix the broken healthcare system, then expand it to cover everyone. We’ll pay for this by breaking up billion-dollar corporate monopolies that profit when your care gets worse. Healthcare costs are out of control because corporations own the pharmacies, the management companies (like Aetna), the clinics, the drug manufacturers, and employ the doctors. Their profit incentive rises as your care declines. We all know that’s not right.

Q: Would you support major tax reform, including raising taxes on billionaires and large corporations?

Yes. We will end corporate welfare and eliminate tax loopholes that push your taxes higher than most corporations. Everyone must pay their fair share and pay what they owe. No exceptions. The top1% controls as much wealth as the bottom 90% - this is setting us up for an economic catastrophe. If a billionaire can afford 5 yachts, they can afford to pay taxes.

Q: Do you support ending U.S. military aid to countries with ongoing human rights abuses, including Israel and Egypt?

Yes. No more funding rogue dictators. No more endless wars.

Q: Do you support expanding the Supreme Court or instituting term limits for justices?

I believe every elected office should have term limits. George Washington realized that power should be limited and stepped down voluntarily. Congress saw that power should be limited after FDR and passed a Constitutional amendment. It’s time to create term limits for all offices.

Q: Should Congress investigate and take action against far-right extremism, including the role of sitting lawmakers in January 6th and other anti-democracy efforts?

The law must apply equally to everyone. If we don’t hold the most powerful people to the same standards as the poorest people, we have no law. We must also fix the broken presidential pardon system by restoring Congressional checks and balances.

Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?

I wish I could answer this question by waving a flag of flowery Democratic slogans that would inspire every reader to jump on the Democratic Party bandwagon and charge forward into the fight. But I can’t.

The Democratic Party is almost as broken as the Republican Party. The country now has just one party in control - the billionaire party. Democrats need to start over. We must have the courage to make billionaires pay their fair share, end corporate welfare, break up monopolies, end dark money in politics, regulate AI and data centers, fix the broken healthcare system, ban Congressional stock trading, enact term limits, and truly support the working class. Those are the Democratic ideals I believe in.

TX25 is a neglected one, but the numbers show a real path.

And the demographics show real opportunity. What has been missing is a campaign willing to do the hard, unglamorous work of organizing, persuading, and turning out voters who have been ignored for too long.

Whether Marks becomes the candidate who can put that coalition together is up to Democratic primary voters. But what’s clear is that Roger Williams is beatable. And TX25 deserves a representative who shows up for families, not corporations.

See you tomorrow.

You can find out more about William Marks on his website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

• February 2, 2026: Last Day to Register to Vote

• February 17, 2026: First Day to Early Vote

• March 3, 2026: Primary Election

• 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.

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