One of the few Republicans still representing blue Dallas County faces a new challenger this year.
State Rep. Angie Chen Button (R-Richardson), a former Texas Instruments employee who’s approaching two decades in the Texas House, has survived several tight races. She won House District (HD) 112 by fewer than a thousand votes in 2018 when Democrat Beto O’Rourke ran for U.S. Senate in a race that helped Democrats flip some other seats in the Texas Legislature.
This year, she faces Zach Herbert, a personal injury lawyer who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary in March.
The race takes place amid another challenging election cycle for Republicans. State Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin) is running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate, and some pollsters put Talarico in the lead. Like O’Rourke in 2018, Talarico could pull more fellow Democrats into the Texas Legislature on his coattails, even if he loses.
In addition, the House Democratic Campaign Committee has HD 112 firmly in its crosshairs.
Here’s each candidate’s background and platform.
Button
Button won by an even slimmer margin of victory in 2020, defeating her Democratic opponent by about 200 votes.
She enjoyed a more comfortable lead in 2022, finishing with about 55 percent of the vote, and she netted 54 percent of the vote in her last election in 2024.
Button’s list of priorities on her campaign website starts with “standing with public schools.”
Education has been a recurrent issue in Button’s races. After she voted to keep education savings accounts (ESAs) in the Texas House’s education omnibus bill in 2023, her 2024 challenger, Averie Bishop, made opposition to ESAs a key plank in her platform.
Button also says she prioritizes women’s health care, lowering the cost of groceries and medicine, protecting children online, and “safeguarding Texas against dangerous AI.”
She’s endorsed by the Associated Republicans of Texas, Americans for Prosperity, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who specifically named her support for school choice in the 2025 session as the reason for his endorsement.
Herbert
Herbert is endorsed by the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, VoteVets, Texas AFL-CIO, Moms Demand Action, the American Federation of Teachers, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes PAC, and the Texas State Teachers Association.
The top issues Herbert names on his website are education, workers’ rights, economic opportunity, and health care access.
Herbert staunchly opposes ESAs. On his site, he criticizes the 2025 bill that established them, House Bill 2, for “set[ting] aside up to $1 billion for vouchers that send public dollars to private schools with little accountability.”
Herbert also supports raising the minimum wage and says he will “push for reforms that provide honest, lasting relief” from the property tax burden.