{"id":37723,"date":"2025-11-06T06:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/37723\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T06:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:50:06","slug":"sarah-eckhardt-wants-to-do-big-things-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/37723\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Eckhardt Wants to Do \u201cBig Things\u201d\u00a0 \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three of Austin\u2019s best-known political leaders are taking on huge challenges in next year\u2019s election \u2013 David vs. Goliath scenarios. Rep. Gina Hinojosa<\/a> is running for governor against Greg Abbott, the most powerful Republican in Texas. Rep. James Talarico is running against the winner of the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, either the longtime incumbent John Cornyn or his highly connected challenger Ken Paxton. And Sarah Eckhardt announced last week that she\u2019s running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in a district with a strong Republican majority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eckhardt began her political career by being elected to the Travis County Commissioners Court in 2006 and has served as Austin\u2019s state senator<\/a> for the past five years. We asked why she would want to step away from her work at the Texas Capitol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not stepping away from anything,\u201d Eckhardt said. \u201cI\u2019m going deeper. I think that people across the board have grown really disenchanted that we\u2019re not doing big things anymore that actually help people. We don\u2019t even expect our government to serve us. And so I want to take this opportunity to go deeper and say, \u2018What common ground do we have?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The congressional district that Eckhardt is running in \u2013 CD 10<\/a> \u2013 was one of five reconfigured this summer on the orders of Donald Trump. It begins in the suburbs west of Austin, takes in Pflugerville and Elgin, and moves out to East Texas, comprising 13 counties, some urban but most rural. The district includes Texas A&M University in College Station and the state prison system\u2019s death row in Livingston. It is 69% white and 16% Hispanic and would have elected Trump with a 60% margin in the 2024 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that people across the board have grown really disenchanted that we\u2019re not doing big things anymore that actually help people. We don\u2019t even expect our government to serve us. And so I want to take this opportunity to go deeper and say, \u2018What common ground do we have?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Eckhardt<\/p>\n

Republican Michael McCaul has represented the district for the last 20 years but is not seeking reelection. Ten Republicans are running to replace him in the March primary. Two Democrats, professor Dawn Marshall and voting rights advocate Tayhlor Coleman, have also gotten into the race. Eckhardt said she is already having conversations with voters in the district.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is that every single person, regardless of what political jersey you wear, feels that in the richest nation in human history we should be able to have homes, food, and health care within the reach of everybody,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t need an algorithm to tell you that your eggs have gone to six bucks and that your health insurance just went up by 127%. So I think that personal experience will make people go, \u2018Huh \u2013 something is not working in my government. It is my government \u2013 it\u2019s our government \u2013 so what do we need to do differently?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In CD 10, Eckhardt will need such universal messages. She said she would handle the inevitable criticisms about her progressive voting record \u2013 for example, her Senate votes for abortion access \u2013 by using her skills as a trained mediator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you hit a divisive issue that is not common ground, you step back to a larger subject that is,\u201d Eckhardt said. \u201cAnd health care is that larger subject. You say, irrespective of how you individually feel about abortion, let\u2019s step back to something we all agree on \u2013 that health care should be within the reach of everyone. Let\u2019s fix that. And we can leave the abortion question to a moment after we get everyone health care that they can afford.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m a public servant first, and I\u2019m a policy wonk second. So what I\u2019m going to do is say, \u2018What do a majority of my constituents want, and what is in their best interest?\u2019 I\u2019ll have to check with the constituents but, based on poll after poll, I think that a total ban on abortion is not a common ground position. I think that most everyone in CD 10, Republican or Democrat, wants medically advised health care they can afford, including reproductive health care, without government interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article appears in November 7 \u2022 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three of Austin\u2019s best-known political leaders are taking on huge challenges in next year\u2019s election \u2013 David vs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,23575,1551,23576,16702,13418,16703],"class_list":{"0":"post-37723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-cd-10","12":"tag-feature","13":"tag-march-2026-primary","14":"tag-michael-mccaul","15":"tag-november-2026-election","16":"tag-sarah-eckhardt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}