Who's In the Race

Rep. Craig Goldman (R-TX) faces Democrat Heli Rodriguez Prilliman in the November 3 general election in Texas's 12th District. Texas enacted a new congressional map for the 2026 elections, and the U.S. Supreme Court allowed its use. ​

Goldman is serving his first term in Congress after 12 years in the Texas House of Representatives, where he chaired the House Energy Resources Committee and the House Republican Caucus; before public office, he worked in his family's Fort Worth gourmet food and wine store. He ran unopposed in the March 3 Republican primary.

Rodriguez Prilliman is a Fort Worth entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience in Silicon Valley startups, including the founding team at Fivestars, and she also founded Lacquerbar and Lacquerbar U, an online education startup. She won the March 3 Democratic primary with about 60 percent of the vote over Kenneth Morgan-Aguilera, who received about 40 percent, a margin of nearly 20 percentage points.

What They Stand For

Goldman has supported tighter border enforcement, saying "There is no greater responsibility for the federal government than to protect the homeland and its citizens," according to his campaign website. He's also supported making the 2017 tax cuts permanent and rolling back regulations, per his campaign website; increased defense spending to maintain F-35 production; health-care measures he says would lower costs, including rewarding Medicaid plans that provide better care at lower cost and requiring insurers to disclose claim-denial information, per his official House website, and free and fair trade, saying "I am for free trade, but I'm also for fair trade," according to the Fort Worth Report.

Rodriguez-Prilliman has proposed universal health care and universal child care, funded by taxing billionaires, according to her campaign website. She's also supported a $10-a-day cap on child care and a health-care system not tied to employers, AI whistleblower protections, liability laws, restrictions on AI companions for children, and mandatory testing and transparency, and abolishing ICE and creating a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants, according to the Fort Worth Report.

The Money Behind the Race

Through June 30, Goldman had raised about $1.76 million and held about $1.51 million in cash on hand, with no reported debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Rodriguez Prilliman reported no receipts in FEC filings, so no fundraising comparison is available. Outside groups have spent a nominal $53.71 supporting Goldman, all of it from a single committee, Texas Alliance for Life Fed PAC, according to FEC outside-spending records.

Race Outlook: Ratings and Betting Markets

Every major handicapper rates this race firmly out of reach for Democrats. Cook Political Report rated it Solid Republican as of Oct. 9; Sabato's Crystal Ball rated it Solid Republican as of Oct. 11; and Inside Elections rated it Solid Republican as of Oct. 2. Kalshi traders gave Republicans a 96.07 percent chance of winning as of Oct. 16, while Democrats stood at 3.93 percent, per the Kalshi prediction market.

The district's recent history backs up those assessments. Goldman won the seat in 2024 with about 63 percent of the vote, just under the about 64 percent Kay Granger posted in the same district in 2022. Goldman's 2024 margin ran about seven percentage points ahead of Donald Trump's showing in Texas that year; Trump carried the state with about 56 percent of the presidential vote. Republicans hold 25 of Texas's 38 U.S. House seats, about 66 percent of the delegation.

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