Hope he earns a lot of coverage in 2018, it sure would help.
Justin Nelson
Justin Nelson stood with his wife around the island in their kitchen and had one final gut check about campaigning to become Texas’ next attorney general: Were they really ready to give up a year of their lives so he could run as an underdog for the state’s third-highest political office?
Democrats have lost every race for statewide office for more than 20 years. Political analysts say even if a so called “blue wave” of Democratic voters flood polling places in next year’s election out of frustration with the Trump administration, Democrats like Nelson are still unlikely to break into statewide office.
But Nelson, an Austin-based trial lawyer counting on support from generous Democratic donors, contends 2018 can be different in a race running against Ken Paxton.
“I don’t think most people know (Paxton) is under indictment,” Nelson said recently from a table at Julio’s, his favorite Austin neighborhood restaurant. “I really believe to my core we need actual choices to run for office and I see an indicted, corrupted, extreme attorney general that looks like he’s going to get a pass from his own party, and I feel that we can do better.”
Nelson is political newcomer who specializes in high-stakes civil litigation including fraud, patents and constitutional issues for Susman Godfrey LLP, which is active in Democratic political circles, and his accolades include being named as among the “World’s Leading Patent Practitioners” by Intellectual Asset Management magazine and chaired the Economics of the Profession Committee in the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Division. He has also practiced and taught constitutional law and is an adjunct professor at The University of Texas School of Law.
He said he wants to sell voters on his qualifications and remind them that their state’s top lawyer has his own legal troubles.
Nelson’s polling in the race suggests people are not universally aware of Ken Paxton’s legal problems, and I have no reason to doubt that. I suspect that may change once the trial begins, as that ought to be big news, quite likely national news. We need to admit to ourselves that there’s risk in this strategy, because there is a non-zero chance Paxton gets acquitted, and if that happens he’s going to have one hell of a persecution/redemption story to tell. Beyond that, Nelson needs to raise enough money to get hs message about himself out, and of course it would be nice if turnout patterns we’ve seen this past year repeat themselves in Texas. Nelson’s a rare statewide Dem with no primary opponent, but he may get more attention than anyone outside the Governor’s race if things go his way.