How to run for office in Texas

1. Pick the office before you pick the slogan

Start with the seat, not the speech. The office decides who can vote for you, how many votes you need, what the filing route is, and roughly what the race costs.

Read what the job actually does. A justice of the peace, a school trustee and a state representative are three very different jobs with three very different electorates.

2. Confirm you qualify

Every public office in Texas has its own requirements: citizenship, Texas residency, residency in the district, voter registration in the area, and a minimum age. Some judicial offices add more.

The Secretary of State publishes the table for every office. Check your exact office there before you spend a dollar.

• Source: Texas SOS: Qualifications for All Public Offices

3. Appoint a campaign treasurer first

This is the step first-time candidates miss. For state and local office in Texas, you file a campaign treasurer appointment (Form CTA; judicial candidates use Form JCTA) before you accept a contribution or spend money on the campaign, including your own money.

The Texas Ethics Commission notes that even the ballot filing fee counts as a campaign expenditure, so the treasurer appointment comes before it. Once appointed, you, not your treasurer, are responsible for the reports.

• Source: TEC: Form CTA instruction guide
• Source: TEC: Candidate and officeholder FAQ

4. Choose your route to the ballot

Party primary: Republican and Democratic candidates file an application for a place on the ballot with the county or state party chair, plus a filing fee or a petition in lieu of the fee. For the 2026 cycle, the window ran November 8 to 6:00 p.m. on December 8, 2025.

Independent: a two-part process. A declaration of intent in the same window, then an application with a nominating petition (due 5:00 p.m. June 25, 2026 for this cycle). Petition signers cannot have voted in a primary that nominated a candidate for the same office.

Write-in, convention-party and nonpartisan city or school races have their own rules and dates. Your filing authority confirms them.

• Source: Texas SOS: Filing in the Republican or Democratic primary
• Source: Texas SOS: Running as an independent candidate
• Source: Texas SOS: Important dates

5. Build the budget before the brand

A campaign plan is a vote goal, a budget and a calendar. Work backward: how many votes wins this seat, how many contacts it takes to earn them, and what each contact costs by door, mail, text and digital.

Raise money on a schedule, not a mood. Every dollar in and out lands on a report.

6. Get the voter data

Texas voter registration information is public on request from the Secretary of State. It includes names, addresses, precincts and voting history: whether someone voted, never how. Texas has no party registration, so party lean comes from primary history.

Requesters sign an affidavit that the data will not be used to advertise or promote commercial products or services. Commercial files layer phone numbers and models on top of the public record.

• Source: Texas SOS: Voter registration public information request (PDF)
• Source: Texas Election Code § 18.066

7. Run the calendar backward from Election Day

Fix the dates that cannot move: filing deadline, report due dates, early voting and Election Day. Then place the mail drops, the door program and the get-out-the-vote push against them.

Most campaigns are not lost in October. They are lost in the months before, when the plan was never written down.