David Collins

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

David B. Collins

Green Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 3, 2020

Education

Bachelor's

Rice University, 1984

Personal

Birthplace

Stillwater, Okla.

Religion

Unitarian Universalist

Profession

Instructional technology

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Twitter

Personal Facebook

David B. Collins (Green Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Texas. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.

Collins completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

David Collins was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Rice University in 1984. Collins’s career experience includes working as an instructional technology trainer and consultant at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He was also a public school teacher for 10 years.

Elections

2020

See also: United States Senate election in Texas, 2020

United States Senate election in Texas, 2020 (March 3 Republican primary)

United States Senate election in Texas, 2020 (March 3 Democratic primary)

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Texas

Incumbent John Cornyn defeated Mary Jennings Hegar, Kerry McKennon, David B. Collins, and Ricardo Turullols-Bonilla in the general election for U.S. Senate Texas on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		John Cornyn (R)	53.5	5,962,983
		Mary Jennings Hegar (D)	43.9	4,888,764
		Kerry McKennon (L)	1.9	209,722
		David B. Collins (G)	0.7	81,893
		Ricardo Turullols-Bonilla (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	678

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 11,144,040
= 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.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Arjun Srinivasan (Independent)
• Cedric Jefferson (People Over Politics Party)
• James Brumley (The Human Rights Party)
• Tim Smith (Independent)

Democratic primary runoff election

Democratic primary runoff for U.S. Senate Texas

Mary Jennings Hegar defeated Royce West in the Democratic primary runoff for U.S. Senate Texas on July 14, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Mary Jennings Hegar	52.2	502,516
		Royce West	47.8	459,457

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 961,973 (100.00% precincts reporting)
= 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.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Texas

The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Texas on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Mary Jennings Hegar	22.3	417,160
✔		Royce West	14.7	274,074
		Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez	13.2	246,659
		Annie Garcia	10.3	191,900
		Amanda Edwards	10.1	189,624
		Chris Bell	8.5	159,751
		Sema Hernandez	7.4	137,892
		Michael Cooper	4.9	92,463
		Victor Harris	3.2	59,710
		Adrian Ocegueda	2.2	41,566
		Jack Daniel Foster Jr.	1.7	31,718
		D.R. Hunter	1.4	26,902

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,869,419
= 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

• John Love III (D)

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Texas

Incumbent John Cornyn defeated Dwayne Stovall, Mark Yancey, John Castro, and Virgil Bierschwale in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Texas on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		John Cornyn	76.0	1,470,669
		Dwayne Stovall	11.9	231,104
		Mark Yancey	6.5	124,864
		John Castro	4.5	86,916
		Virgil Bierschwale	1.1	20,494

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,934,047
= 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.

Green convention

Green convention for U.S. Senate Texas

David B. Collins advanced from the Green convention for U.S. Senate Texas on April 18, 2020.

		Candidate
✔		David B. Collins (G)

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified.
= 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.

Libertarian convention

Libertarian convention for U.S. Senate Texas

Kerry McKennon advanced from the Libertarian convention for U.S. Senate Texas on August 3, 2020.

		Candidate
✔		Kerry McKennon (L)

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source
= 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

• Wes Benedict (L)
• Rhett Rosenquest Smith (L)

2014

See also: Texas judicial elections, 2014
Collins ran for election to the Harris County Court.
General: He was defeated in the general election on November 4, 2014, after receiving 16.6 percent of the vote. He competed against Ed Emmett. 

2012

See also: United States Senate elections in Texas, 2012

Collins ran in the 2012 election for the U.S. Senate, representing Texas. He was one of two Green Party candidates who were selected at a convention to appear on the general election ballot. He lost to Ted Cruz (R) in the general election on November 6, 2012.

U.S. Senate, Texas General Election, 2012

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Republican	Ted Cruz	56.5%	4,440,137
	Democratic	Paul Sadler	40.6%	3,194,927
	Libertarian	John Jay Myers	2.1%	162,354
	Green	David B. Collins	0.9%	67,404
Total Votes				7,864,822
Source: Texas Secretary of State "Official Election Results, 2012 General Election"

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

David B. Collins completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Collins' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Born in Stillwater OK, 1962

BA, Classical Studies, Rice University, 1984 Instructional technology and training specialist in Houston TX Green Party of Texas nominee for US Senate, 2012 and 2020 Harris County Green Party nominee for County Judge, 2014 Early Green Party organizer in Harris County Musician, bicycle commuter and cycling activist

Houston Dynamo (MLS) and Dash (NWSL) fan

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• The Green Party calls for Medicare for All, free public college tuition, ending endless wars including the Drug War, and preventing climate catastrophe.
• If you cannot vote for warmongers and still live with yourself, vote Green.
• The two-party system needs to be destroyed. It keeps imperialism & capitalism alive because they are profitable. Imperialism & capitalism need to stoke racism & xenophobia to stay in business.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

The original Green New Deal, not the watered-down Democratic version

Getting corporate money out of electoral politics
Getting capitalism and profit out of health care
A comprehensive plan for providing universal mental health care
Full reproductive choice for women
Full civil, housing, and employment rights for LGBTQ+ Americans
Urban agriculture and regional food webs

Complete Streets urban infrastructure and encouraging people-powered transportation

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

All five GPUS nominees for president: Nader, Cobb, McKinney, Stein, and Hawkins.

All six GPUS nominees for vice president: LaDuke, LaMarche, Clemente, Honkala, Barak, and Walker
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Paul Wellstone
Dr. Cornel West
Prof. Noam Chomsky
Arundhati Roy
Wangari Maathai
Petra Kelly
Extinction Rebellion leaders and activists worldwide

My aspiration and ambition is to keep people's movements active, because every system needs constant improvement, and governments can always do better by their citizens and visitors. I identify with movement leaders who question conventional wisdom and accept "we've always done it this way" as an answer.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

1. Any book by Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, John Rensenbrink, or the essays of Arundhati Roy.
2. My website, dbcgreentx.net.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

See my answers to previous questions.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

"Successful" has different definitions for different people. My refusal to meet with corporate lobbyists or accept corporate campaign contributions would probably set me up for failure, as would my refusal to caucus with the Democrats. However, even standing alone, I would do my best to undertake every action in consideration of people, planet, and peace; I would let constituents know when their Senators privilege profit over people.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

1. Represent, through legislation and appropriations, the interests of the people of one's state, including those who cannot vote or make campaign contributions.

2. Protect and preserve that natural environment.

3. Confirm or reject presidential appointees based on #1 and #2 above.

What legacy would you like to leave?

Just being among the first cohort of Green US Senators and showing the world that Greens can do right by the people, which should then result in more Greens getting in.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy happened when I was five.

What is your favorite book? Why?

If I had to name just one, it would be "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. CAUTION: Reading this novel can take over your life and change you in unexpected ways. DFW's bold experimentations with characters and dialog, his explorations of mental illness, and the messed-up world he imagined (messed up in far funnier ways than the "real" world) win the post-modernist sweepstakes.

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Fictional characters who are even partly interesting are interesting because of their suffering. But at least their suffering is more entertaining than real-life suffering. My favorite sufferer is Jamie Fraser from the "Outlander" series, something of a proto-feminist peaceful warrior who just wants to make life safe and comfortable for his family and friends but who is constantly beset by the circumstances of 18th-century life.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

"Leeds United" by Amanda Palmer, mostly because Leeds United FC have just clinched promotion to the Premier League sixteen years after their last relegation from the top division.

What is something that has been a struggle in your life?

In my blog, I have been fairly candid about my chronic depression, a condition I supposedly share with some revered politicians including Abraham Lincoln. For years I thought it was something people just had to work through, but then discovered that many (including my spouse at the time) cannot without medical help. I have also had friends with various types of mental illness, which has helped me empathize with them and include mental health care as a large and visible part of my platform.

What do you perceive to be the United States’ greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

The gravest existential threat to the human and natural world is anthropogenic climate disruption. This nation needs to catch up with other post-industrial nations in crafting and enacting policies that reign in the excesses of capitalism, such as business interests that deny climate science because it is inconvenient for their bottom lines.

Apart from that, we have appalling levels of poverty, wealth disparity, health disparity, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and lifestyle diseases. We need to make it easier for people of limited means to purchase healthy foods and live in healthy environments. That means more and better public transportation. It means changing housing policies and stopping gentrification (which is really more like urban colonialism). And it certainly means a single-payer, nationwide health system to replace the profit-driven "system" we have at present.

What qualities does the U.S. Senate possess that makes it unique as an institution?

The U.S. Senate is one of the most undemocratic institutions of government in the so-called free world, even before you factor in the influence of corporate money on policy-making. I hope that I live to see a constitutional amendment that changes the composition of the Senate. You don't find many legislative bodies in which each state, province, region, or territory gets the same amount of delegates irrespective of population. Direct popular election of Senators didn't even start until 1913.

If the Senate were a truly deliberative body tasked with considering the consequences of legislation upon generations to come, as with the Iroquois councils, that would be a welcome change.

Do you believe that it’s beneficial for senators to have previous experience in government or politics?

For some. I don't believe it should be a requirement. Experience in government too often puts legislators in the mindset of always having to please the donors, rather than considering the welfare of the people at large. I would say that it helps to have some education in the realm of public policy. Parliamentarians in Europe are often trained in the arts of governance, whereas in the US too many of them are attorneys trained in the arts of bullshittery.

What do you think of the filibuster?

Ambivalent. I'm somewhat grateful that senators usually avoid filibusters by going straight to cloture votes, but it feels equivalent to plea bargaining to avoid a trial. Used correctly, the filibuster is an important tool in stopping wrongheaded legislation from passing, including repeals of existing laws.

What criteria would you apply when deciding whether to confirm presidential appointees?

Ideally, cabinet candidates and judicial appointees should have no ties to the corporate world. Beyond that, I am interested in judicial appointees' willingness to interpret statutes and litigation in ways that benefit people and planet. However, I have no criteria for how far "left" an appointee's record might be: Evenhanded interpretations are more important than ideology on federal benches.

Do you believe it’s beneficial to build relationships with other senators?

It can be. Some of these relationships are based strictly on forming a flying wedge to ram corporate-sponsored legislation through Congress. Congressmembers with friends across the aisle can sometimes influence each other, for good or ill, but it puts the lie to the public and media perception of partisan divisiveness when Senators from both major parties vote the same most of the time, especially on defense expenditures. "Bipartisan" has become a code word for "both sides screwing the workers."

If you are not a current senator, are there certain committees that you would want to be a part of?

1. Foreign Relations
2. Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

If you are not currently a member of your party’s leadership in the U.S. Senate, would you be interested in joining the leadership? If so, in what role?

If I were elected, I would be one of very few Greens in the Senate, perhaps the only one. That would make me a party leader by default.

Is there a particular senator, past or present, whom you want to model yourself after?

Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Paul Wellstone (DFL-MN) come quickly to mind. There are two past House members I would like to emulate as well: Barbara Jordan (D-TX) and Jeannette Rankin (R-MT).

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.

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Footnotes

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Texas' current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

John Cornyn (R)

Ted Cruz (R)

Representatives

District 1

Nathaniel Moran (R)

District 2

Daniel Crenshaw (R)

District 3

Keith Self (R)

District 4

Pat Fallon (R)

District 5

Lance Gooden (R)

District 6

Jake Ellzey (R)

District 7

Lizzie Fletcher (D)

District 8

Morgan Luttrell (R)

District 9

Al Green (D)

District 10

Michael McCaul (R)

District 11

August Pfluger (R)

District 12

Craig Goldman (R)

District 13

Ronny Jackson (R)

District 14

Randy Weber (R)

District 15

Monica De La Cruz (R)

District 16

Veronica Escobar (D)

District 17

Pete Sessions (R)

District 18

Vacant

District 19

Jodey Arrington (R)

District 20

Joaquin Castro (D)

District 21

Chip Roy (R)

District 22

Troy Nehls (R)

District 23

Tony Gonzales (R)

District 24

Beth Van Duyne (R)

District 25

Roger Williams (R)

District 26

Brandon Gill (R)

District 27

Michael Cloud (R)

District 28

Henry Cuellar (D)

District 29

Sylvia Garcia (D)

District 30

Jasmine Crockett (D)

District 31

John Carter (R)

District 32

Julie Johnson (D)

District 33

Marc Veasey (D)

District 34

Vicente Gonzalez (D)

District 35

Greg Casar (D)

District 36

Brian Babin (R)

District 37

Lloyd Doggett (D)

District 38

Wesley Hunt (R)

Republican Party (27)

Democratic Party (12)

Vacancies (1)