AUSTIN – The race to represent a Dallas-area state Senate district is a surprise contest between two veteran lawmakers in one of the more high-profile elections in the March 5 Democratic primary.

The race pits incumbent Sen. Nathan Johnson against state Rep. Victoria Neave Criado in a bruising campaign that has left both candidates on the defensive for their voting records.

The race features a rare challenge to a well-funded incumbent in Johnson, who flipped the Dallas County Senate district from red to blue in 2018 before it was reshaped into a safe seat for Democratic candidates in the last round of redistricting.

But Neave Criado has largely dictated the campaign’s narrative by launching repeated attacks on Johnson’s voting record in the Legislature, particularly his support for an immigration bill pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Neave Criado has called Johnson’s support for the law, which increased the criminal penalty for human smuggling, a “racial profiling” bill. Johnson says the law has been on the books for decades and has accused Neave Criado of muddling facts.

“He has thrown the residents of Senate District 16 under the bus. He should have fought against that bill and he should have voted against it,” Neave Criado said in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News.

The Legislature passed the bill in question last year during the third special session. Named a priority by Abbott, Senate Bill 4 increased the penalty for human trafficking from 5 years to 10 years in prison. It had bipartisan support in both chambers, and Johnson voted for the bill.

Johnson has responded to Neave Criado’s attack with his own swipes at her voting record in the Legislature, including her support for bills that required the national anthem to be played at professional sporting events, required schools to display “In God We Trust” posters and prohibited private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccines.

“She’s tried to attack me in areas where I’ve been very strong,” Johnson said in a recent interview, “and so I don’t blame her, because her record doesn’t stack up to mine. So she’s going to make up stuff to try to make people think that she’s more of a fighter.”

The candidates

Johnson, 56, is a lawyer with a focus on commercial litigation at the national law firm Thompson Coburn. He has lived in Dallas for nearly three decades and has a degree in physics from the University of Arizona and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

He is a composer who has created music for the classical stage and has scored more than 60 episodes of the television series “Dragon Ball Z.”

Neave Criado, 43, was born in Dallas and grew up in the Pleasant Grove neighborhood. She is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant father and Tejana mother. She attended high school at Ursuline Academy before attending the University of Texas at Dallas, where she earned a degree in government and politics.

She got her law degree from Texas Southern University. She is the head of her law firm, Neave Law, in Dallas and focuses on family and employment law as well as mediation.

Legislative records

Neave Criado was first elected to the House in 2016, narrowly unseating a Republican incumbent by fewer than 1,000 votes.

In her four terms in the House, Neave Criado’s signature legislative accomplishment has been the Lavinia Masters Act, named for a Dallas woman whose rape kit sat untested for 21 years. The law required law enforcement agencies to work through backlogs of sexual assault forensic exams.

Neave Criado has focused on domestic violence and violence against women, authoring bills that address domestic and sexual assault, including a law this year that created a public database for repeat offenders.

“That’s the type of leadership that I bring – finding solutions, bringing subject matter experts together to deliver significant results for the women of Texas,” Neave Criado said.

She is the chair of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the House, chair of the House Committee on County Affairs and a member of the Business and Industry Committee.

Johnson has been in office since 2019. In recent years he has focused on addressing the Texas power grid and led the effort to add $1.8 billion in funding for backup power systems for critical infrastructure such as hospitals and first responders.

He has also focused on health care needs and a leading proponent for the state to accept federal dollars for Medicaid expansion. In three sessions, Johnson has been the driver behind legislation that requires testing for an infant disease that causes hearing loss, improves palliative care and boosts mental health programs for teens.

“The things I’m most proud of are the bills that help people, individuals at the beginning of life and the end of life and in between,” he said.

He is a member of four Senate committees, including Business and Commerce, and is vice-chair of the Jurisprudence Committee.

Endorsements and campaign funds

Johnson has been endorsed by six state senators, including fellow Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West. Five members of the Dallas City Council, former Mayor Ron Kirk and numerous organizations, including the Texas AFL-CIO and the Dallas Police Association, have thrown their support behind Johnson.

Neave Criado has pulled in support from several Dallas-area colleagues in the House, including Dallas Democratic Rep. John Bryant. She’s been endorsed by three Dallas City Council members, the Mesquite Police Association and the Texas Organizing Project.

Johnson entered the race in a stronger financial position than Neave Criado that he has continued to maintain with nearly $750,000 in his campaign account, compared with $33,000 for Neave Criado, heading into the campaign’s homestretch, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Johnson has pulled in large donations from power transmission companies and a health care organization, while Neave Criado’s top contributor is a Dallas plumbers and pipefitters union.

The Senate district

Both candidates are running for Senate District 16, one of 31 seats in the Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the president of the chamber and wields tremendous power in dictating what bills will come up for a vote.

For 38 years, a Republican represented the North Texas district until Johnson ousted GOP incumbent Don Huffines in 2018 in a midterm election that saw wide Democratic gains in the Texas Legislature.

After the 2020 census, the Legislature redrew the district lines, changing it from a northern Dallas County-centric district that included Carrollton and Garland to a jigsaw containing parts of Dallas and suburbs that ring west, north and east Dallas, including portions of Richardson, Irving and Mesquite.

It is now considered a safe blue seat that favored Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a near 2-to-1 margin in 2020.

Redistricting shifted the demographics of the district from a near-even split between white and non-white residents to a district that has a 73% non-white population. Half of the district is Hispanic.

Neave Criado said the district needs representation that better resembles its population.

“I understand the needs of the residents of this district and I will be a better representative hands down, and that’s where we’re working hard to earn the votes of our fellow neighbors,” Neave Criado said in a Spectrum News interview in January.

Johnson said that decision is up to the voters, but residents of the district deserve good representation.

“They deserve people who are going to take into account their interests and their needs – particularly things like health care, education, fundamental infrastructure needs – and they’re going to choose the person who best represents them,” he said.

Early voting for the primary begins on Feb. 20. Election day is March 5.