Three Republicans and even one Democrat are seeking to defeat a radical Central Texas Democrat state representative.

The fight for battleground Texas House District 45, an area which includes Hays and Blanco counties, is now fully underway; the candidate filing deadline passed in early December, and four challengers have entered the race to unseat Democrat Rep. Erin Zwiener.

Zwiener, a freshman representative who narrowly snatched victory from Republicans in 2018, immediately took advantage of her new seat in the capitol to advocate for an extreme agenda. Zwiener earned a dismal score of 20/100 on the Fiscal Responsibility Index during her first term and was rated by a Rice University analysis as the sixth most liberal member in the Texas House, voting repeatedly to raise taxes on citizens, strip away protections for pre-born children, and silence free speech on college campuses.

Now, she’s returning to the people of her district to find heated opposition to her actions.

“[Zwiener] has this slogan, ‘Let’s put the all in y’all.’ Well, I like to say she means ‘all’ unless you’re a taxpayer, student, gun owner, Christian, or an unborn child,” said nonprofit director Carrie Isaac, one of the Republicans running to reclaim Zwiener’s seat. “She’s voted against all of those.”

“I don’t think Erin Zwiener reflects the values of Texas,” said U.S. Navy veteran and small businessman Austin Talley, another Republican in the race. “I think she just needs to bid farewell.”

“[Zwiener] is openly socialist, supports open borders and a state income tax,” said lawyer and former Hays County GOP party chairman Bud Wymore, also running for the seat. “Her agenda is not our community’s agenda, and we must not let it prevail.”

Zwiener also faces a challenger from her own party, Liliana Posada, who did not return Texas Scorecard’s request for comment.

Local Republican and Democrat voters will choose their party’s candidate at the primary election on March 3, 2020, and ultimately decide in November who they will send back to the capitol to represent them.

Jacob Asmussen

Jacob Asmussen is a Senior Journalist for Texas Scorecard. He attended the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and in 2017 earned a double major in public relations and piano performance.

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