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Brandon Hawbaker

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This candidate is participating in a 2026 battleground election. Click here to read more about that election.
Brandon Hawbaker
Republican Party
Candidate, U.S. House Texas District 10
Elections and appointments
Next election
March 3, 2026
Education
Bachelor's
DeVry University, 2005
Personal
Religion
Christian
Profession
Software engineer
Contact
Campaign website
Campaign Facebook
Campaign X
Personal Facebook

Brandon Hawbaker (Republican Party) is running for election to the U.S. House to represent Texas' 10th Congressional District. He is on the ballot in the Republican primary on March 3, 2026.[source]

Hawbaker completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.

Hawbaker changed districts due to redistricting. To read more about redistricting Texas, click here.

Biography

Brandon Hawbaker earned a bachelor's degree from DeVry University in 2005. His career experience includes working as a software engineer.[1]

2026 battleground election

See also: Texas' 10th Congressional District election, 2026 (March 3 Republican primary)

Ballotpedia identified the March 3, 2026, Republican primary as a battleground primary. The summary below is from our coverage of this election, found here.

Chris Gober (R), Jessica Karlsruher (R), Scott MacLeod (R), and seven other candidates are running in the Republican primary for Texas' 10th Congressional District on March 3, 2026. The filing deadline is December 8, 2025. As of January 2026, Gober, Karlsruher, and MacLeod led in local media attention.[2]

Incumbent Michael McCaul (R), first elected in 2004, is not running for re-election, saying he was "looking now for a new challenge."[3] As of January 2026, McCaul had not endorsed any of the candidates.

Gober is an attorney and the chief executive officer of Lex Politica, which Gober describes as "the nation’s top conservative law practice, consistently winning for conservatives in the toughest legal and political battles of our time."[4][5] Gober earlier worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, the Republican Party, and America PAC. Gober says he is running "because President Trump needs allies who know how to beat the Left and won’t back down."[4]

Karlsruher describes herself as "a 5th-generation Texan and a life-long conservative." Karlsruher is a former chief executive officer of the Texas Real Estate Advocacy & Defense Coalition, where she says she "fought tirelessly to defend landowners, protect Texas ranchers and farmers, strengthen rural communities, preserve our natural resources, and stand up for the state’s vital oil and gas industry."[6] Karlsruher says she is running "because I want my kids—and every Texas family—to grow up in a country that’s strong, free, and full of opportunity."[7]

MacLeod is a retired U.S. Army colonel. MacLeod describes himself as "a decorated veteran, strong conservative, and proven leader who has spent more than three decades defending America from foreign threats and fighting for Texas."[8] MacLeod says he is running because "I want to give back what was freely given to me. I was blessed with an amazing career and professional education that I believe is relevant to the challenges faced by our country. I feel a duty to serve and want to work hard for the people of Texas and our Nation."[9]

Also running in the primary are Rob Altman (R), Ben Bius (R), Robert Brown (R), Jenny Garcia Sharon (R), Brandon Hawbaker (R), Christopher Hurt (R), Kara King (R), and Jeremy Story (R).

As of January 2026, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, and Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball each rated the general election Solid/Safe Republican. In the 2024 election, McCaul defeated Theresa Boisseau (D) 64%–34%. An Inside Elections analysis of the August 2025 redistricting in Texas' effect on the 10th district calculated that President Donald Trump (R) won the 2024 presidential election in the new 2026 district lines by 23 percentage points, down from the 25 percentage points under the district's 2024 lines.[10]

Elections

2026

See also: Texas' 10th Congressional District election, 2026

General election

The primary will occur on March 3, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Texas District 10

Dawn Marshall, Bernie Reyna, and Caitlin Rourk are running in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Texas District 10 on March 3, 2026.

Candidate
Image of Dawn Marshall
Dawn Marshall Candidate Connection
Image of Bernie Reyna
Bernie Reyna Candidate Connection
Image of Caitlin Rourk
Caitlin Rourk Candidate Connection

There are no incumbents in this race.

Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 10

The following candidates are running in the Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 10 on March 3, 2026.

Candidate
Image of Rob Altman
Rob Altman Candidate Connection
Image of Ben Bius
Ben Bius Candidate Connection
Image of Robert Brown
Robert Brown Candidate Connection
Image of Jenny Garcia Sharon
Jenny Garcia Sharon
Image of Chris Gober
Chris Gober Candidate Connection
Image of Brandon Hawbaker
Brandon Hawbaker Candidate Connection
Image of Jessica Karlsruher
Jessica Karlsruher Candidate Connection
Image of Kara King
Kara King
Image of Scott MacLeod
Scott MacLeod
Image of Jeremy Story
Jeremy Story Candidate Connection

There are no incumbents in this race.

Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Polls

See also: Ballotpedia's approach to covering polls

We provide results for polls that are included in polling aggregation from RealClearPolitics, when available. We will regularly check for polling aggregation for this race and add polls here once available. To notify us of polls available for this race, please email us.

Election campaign finance

Name Party Receipts* Disbursements** Cash on hand Date
Rob Altman Republican Party $193,488 $35,004 $158,483 As of February 11, 2026
Ben Bius Republican Party $459,536 $49,114 $299,483 As of February 11, 2026
Robert Brown Republican Party $7,754 $6,302 $1,307 As of February 11, 2026
Jenny Garcia Sharon Republican Party $19,272 $10,216 $9,056 As of February 11, 2026
Chris Gober Republican Party $1,151,763 $1,047,103 $104,660 As of February 11, 2026
Brandon Hawbaker Republican Party $6,703 $6,287 $416 As of February 11, 2026
Jessica Karlsruher Republican Party $165,533 $106,081 $59,452 As of February 11, 2026
Kara King Republican Party $230,098 $70,414 $159,683 As of December 31, 2025
Scott MacLeod Republican Party $166,391 $87,096 $79,294 As of February 11, 2026
Jeremy Story Republican Party $25,624 $10,065 $15,559 As of February 11, 2026

Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2026. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

* According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee."
** According to the FEC, a disbursement "is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money or anything of value to influence a federal election," plus other kinds of payments not made to influence a federal election.

Satellite spending

See also: Satellite spending

Satellite spending describes political spending not controlled by candidates or their campaigns; that is, any political expenditures made by groups or individuals that are not directly affiliated with a candidate. This includes spending by political party committees, super PACs, trade associations, and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.[11][12][13]

If available, this section includes links to online resources tracking satellite spending in this election. To notify us of a resource to add, email us.

By candidate By election


Endorsements

Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.

Campaign themes

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Brandon Hawbaker completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Hawbaker's responses.

Expand all | Collapse all

I feel like God has been encouraging me to run for this position, so here I am. I have been trying to get our current representative to act on many things in the past and since I never hear back from him, I feel it's important to be there for people. I want to be a representative that you can rely on, trust in, and contact anytime you want.

At some point, I would like to meet and hear from each and every one of you in person and hear directly from you what your biggest concerns and hopes are. I want us to be able to live and breath again, to be able to live our lives without having to stress and worry about what the government is or is not doing. I want you to be able to rest at night knowing I'm battling for you with all my might, mind, and strength.

Also, while I'm not your traditional politician like a lawyer or large business owner, I do have some unique skills that may help. Because I'm a Senior Software Engineer, I have the ability to create our own applications, services, and websites to organize, gather, investigate, and brainstorm solutions for issues that matter most to our own district. I'm also really good at digging deep and getting to the root cause of problems and I'm excited to see what solutions we can come up with together.

I want to fix it all, line-by-line, bill-by-bill, issue-by-issue, until we're all celebrating together! I know it's going to be a lot of work since we have decades of bad legislation, but we'll get it done.
  • The first thing I want you to remember about me is that you are always welcome to talk to me. If I'm honored to earn your vote, it's my highest priority to have every challenge you face at home at the forefront of my mind in every bill I work on. I will never give up on you and will never stop fighting for you, your families, and your children.
  • We need good ideas and we need a lot of them. We will create our own process or system in our district to make sure no idea is lost and every idea is seriously considered in the priority our district determines. I will create forums, groups, committees, dashboards, voting options and anything else here at home to build and create the absolute best legislation we can come up with. We will have our own legislation "factory" here at home, where anyone is free to participate.
  • I was going to Walmart the other day and I wore my "Let's Go Brandon" hat I had bought from Trump Burger in Bellville and my youngest son asked if I could take it off. I asked him, "Why?" He said he was scared something might happen to me. It was then, that I realized my son was not living in the same country I lived in when I grew up and no matter how much I tried to share the beautiful joy I experienced as a child growing up, it just wasn't the same. I never want my kids or yours to ever be afraid of wearing something as simple as a hat ever again.
I'm very passionate about election integrity, because it is absolutely the most important thing to get right. WITH election integrity we can eventually fix everything. WITHOUT it, we're screwed. It's not one of those few things you can simply "fix later", because if you don't get it right now, you may never have a chance ever again.

We have to keep our families safe. We need secure borders and we need to keep you armed in case something was missed. We also need to keep you safe from the government in case they ever turn on us again. This includes protecting your medical freedom, protecting the value of your paycheck, keeping your cost of living down, getting rid of taxes, and keeping us out of wars.
God and Jesus Christ. I hope to follow his example, because we're talking about eternal implications.
I don't think I can honestly point to just one book, essay, or film to explain my political philosophy if you want to call it mine. I can say I've read a lot of religious texts (i.e. Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, and Nag Hammadi codices). I love libertarian principles in books like Atlas Shrugged or End the Fed, and have always been open to exploring new ways of thinking including books like The Trap or the Kybalion. Some powerful movies I've enjoyed and probably left a mark on me are the Braveheart, Matrix, Truman Show, and Equilibrium. I always seek the truth no matter where I find it, but I prefer to go straight to the source as much as possible.
Some big ones would include:

-Love
-Faith
-Honesty
-Integrity
-Hard work
-Courage
-Intelligence

Some others I think are very important as well are:

-Creativity
-Open-mindedness
-Thoroughness
-Attention-to-detail
-Determination
-Perseverance
-Vision

To be clear, I know God isn't asking me to do this because I'm perfect, but he does know I can be obedient in difficult situations.
I'm a very logical person. If something doesn't make sense it's going to stick out like sore thumb. I also like to get into the details. I don't want some buried crap hidden in a thousand page bill to sneak through and hurt one of my constituents.
The most important responsibility of a representative is to represent the individuals that put them there. This means they listen carefully and thoughtfully to those they serve, so that they truly understand what's at stake, what really matters to them, and how to best achieve the goals their constituents ask of them. To me, this also means I have to take as many notes as I'm permitted to take, so I don't miss something and that I can think about these things over and over again. This also allows me to measure, to explore, and to follow-up as needed.
I would like to come home to my district as a hero and I would like to save my state and this country from destruction.
9-11, about 18 years old
I was a dishwasher for a Mexican restaurant and had that job until I was made a cook, which I left when I went to college.
I'm not sure I have a single favorite book, but I do like books that have a more practical nature to them like the Kybalion or 7 Habits of Highly Effect People
Probably someone like Zeus. I would love to be able to shoot lighting from my arms and rule the skies like a god.
I think the last song in my head was:

Alice In Chains - Grind

But the last one that was stuck in my head was:

Jethro Tull - Aqualung
One thing that has always been a challenge for me is just not knowing all the answers. It's not easy for me to let go and and have faith that everything is going to be okay.
With a shorter two-year term, representatives are naturally forced to constantly reconnect with their constituents. They don't get to just hang out in the Senate for 6 years. One thing I love about the House of Representatives is that they have the power of the purse and I would like our House of Representatives to be more surgical about its spending. I also like how the House can conduct its own investigations. Imagine if we started investigating election fraud!
It can definitely help for sure, but it can also be a bad thing, if individuals get to used to doing something one way that they become blind to seeing other options.
One of the biggest challenges we're facing is a currency crisis. Keeping the dollar as the preferred world reserve currency is going to be difficult if we don't come up with something better.

Another very large challenge that is coming our way is the explosion of AI. AI is becoming capable of eliminating jobs that automation couldn't eliminate before. This suggests some serious level of adaptation for this kind of economic development. In addition to creating more jobs in these areas, I think we need to seriously find ways to reduce the cost-of-living overall so that Americans can afford to live without requiring extremely high-paying careers just to survive.
Yes. Representatives should be naturally closer and more connected to the people they serve by design. Having regular elections encourages representatives to constantly seek the favor of their districts, which is a good thing.
I know some people like term limits, but in all honesty I have mixed feelings about it. I get how we have all these career politicians who only care about themselves, but why can't the voters just decide enough is enough and create a term limit for them anyways? Personally, I would rather keep the good representatives in for a bit who make all the waves and gradually eliminate the bad ones, because having the good ones is a lot more important than having new ones, especially if all the new politicians tend to be brought in from the same funding sources. I guess I would prefer the people to decide when "enough is enough".
I'm not saying I would do everything exactly the same way he did, but I love Congressman Ron Paul, because he always stood for the truth no matter how unpopular it was at the time.
I was speaking with an HVAC professional the other day and I was saddened by something he was alluding to, which was a relationship challenge, which I won't go into details about, but I remember him talk about how expensive groceries were getting. It made me sad, making me wonder if these economic pressures are destroying families in serious ways. It's a reminder to me about how serious this situation really is and how important it is to focus on the right issues.
I laughed when I saw this and my wife would too, I'm sure. This question! To perfectly honest I don't find most jokes to be very funny and those I do are probably not jokes at all. One expression from my son made it so I couldn't stop laughing one time..
It's possible, but such compromises should always be taking far more steps in the right direction than in the wrong direction. A thousand-page omnibus bill with 950 steps in the wrong direction should not justify 50 in the right direction. Most importantly, however, we should never assume there aren't better ideas that don't result in a compromise of ideals. That's why creativity is an important quality to me. We should be creative enough to find approaches that other people aren't even thinking of that make every person we represent happy and not just a portion.
To me this means we should be defining exactly what money goes for and exactly how it should be spent. It's crazy to me how Congress has neglected this important responsibility and thrown it over to the executive branch. Representatives shouldn't be lazy about this. We could care about how every dollar is spent like it was our own money, because it is.
We first need to investigate all allegations of election fraud. States have done some of the work, but I don't think enough has been done to get to the bottom of it. 
There is simply nothing more important than this.

Secondly, we need to investigate the border situation to make sure it is fully taken care of. Getting bad people out is one thing, but keeping them out is another. I don't want criminals messing with people in my district.

Third, I want to make sure nothing is getting in the way of individuals being able to arm themselves and protect themselves and their families. If there's anything preventing individuals from securing their own families, that's a serious problem.

Fourth, I think we need to do an investigation on all the causes of high prices, including food production issues. Some of this is pretty obvious, but I think there's a lot more to this that we need to get to the bottom of. For example, why were so many food production facilities destroyed in the last four years?
The ones my constituents care about. If I need to become an expert in a particular field to address a particular need of one my constituents, I will. That being said, there are some committees that I would naturally be able to offer some immediate help with such as:

-Agriculture
-Science, Space, and Technology
-Energy and Commerce

We may end up needing to change or create new committees if needed.
We absolutely need extreme financial transparency and government accountability. The fact that it took someone like Edward Snowden to go into exile just to know the government was spying on us was extremely revealing in terms of how little transparency we've had. There are still so many government secrets, it's ridiculous. We need to know the truth about 9-11, about the JFK assassination, Jeffrey Epstein, about UFOs at some point. We need to get to the bottom of these things and then move on and heal from them. I mean does anyone still believe the official stories the government tells us anymore anyways?

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Brandon Hawbaker campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2026* U.S. House Texas District 10On the Ballot primary$6,703 $6,287
Grand total$6,703 $6,287
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Election Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

See also

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External links

Candidate

U.S. House Texas District 10
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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 3, 2025
    2. ↑ Austin American-Statesman, "Bee Cave Mayor King joining race for District 10 seat in U.S. House," October 17, 2025
    3. ↑ Axios, "Rep. Michael McCaul won't seek reelection in 2026," September 14, 2025
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chris Gober campaign website, "About Chris," accessed January 15, 2026
    5. ↑ Lex Politica, "Chris Gober," accessed January 15, 2026
    6. ↑ Jessica Karlsruher campaign website, "Home page," accessed October 18, 2025
    7. ↑ LinkedIn, "Post by Jessica Karlsruher," accessed October 18, 2025
    8. ↑ Scott MacLeod campaign website, "Home page," accessed October 18, 2025
    9. ↑ Facebook, "Scott MacLeod on October 14, 2025," accessed October 18, 2025
    10. ↑ Inside Elections, "A Detailed Analysis of Texas’ New Congressional Map," August 27, 2025
    11. ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Outside Spending," accessed December 12, 2021
    12. ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, All Groups," accessed December 12, 2021
    13. ↑ National Review.com, "Why the Media Hate Super PACs," December 12, 2021


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