A Valley native is hoping to unseat Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Rochelle Garza from Brownsville received more than twice the amount of votes in the Democratic primary than her two opponents combined. Now, Garza’s headed to a runoff with an opponent still yet to be decided.

Garza is a candidate who was originally running for District 34’s congressional seat, but in November of last year, that changed. Now, she’s got her eyes set on being the state’s first Latina attorney general.

“We need to have somebody who’s going to be there who’s going to fight for us and the things that we need,” Garza said.

Garza’s a candidate who presents herself as someone standing up for families. The Brownsville mother-to-be is a former ACLU attorney and is advocating for reproductive rights and holding power companies accountable following last year’s big freeze.

Garza says she would also work to ensure that colonias have access to vital resources.

“There’s a lot of power in this office that can be used for good and for uplifting every single community,” Garza said.

Garza is quick to criticize Paxton’s position on border policy, and his choice to sue Texas schools implementing mask mandates as the COVID-19 pandemic made waves across the state.

“Ken Paxton has used his office only to harm people,” Garza said. “More recently, he was attacking trans kids and their families. He uses his office for divisive politics and not to bring people together or bring communities together.”

As Garza works to win the Democratic vote in May’s runoff, she believes representation from someone like her has been a long time coming.

“It says a lot about what Texas is going to be, and what we really want to see is, we want to see women — we want to see Latinos — we want to see people from communities like ours take a seat at the table of power and to really shape the future of Texas,” Garza said.

When it comes to voting, in contrast to Paxton’s election integrity unit that looks into voter fraud, Garza says, if elected, she would instead establish a fully funded civil rights division that would include a voting rights subdivision.

The Republican race for attorney general is also headed to a runoff between Ken Paxton and George P. Bush.