Elisa Cardnell

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Elisa Cardnell

Democratic Party

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Elisa Cardnell (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Texas' 2nd Congressional District. She did not appear on the ballot for the Democratic primary runoff on July 14, 2020.

Cardnell completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Elisa Cardnell was born in West Germany. Cardnell served in the United States Navy from 2007 to 2018. She attended Rice University for undergraduate and graduate study.

Elections

2020

See also: Texas' 2nd Congressional District election, 2020

Texas' 2nd Congressional District election, 2020 (March 3 Republican primary)

Texas' 2nd Congressional District election, 2020 (March 3 Democratic primary)

General election

General election for U.S. House Texas District 2

Incumbent Daniel Crenshaw defeated Sima Ladjevardian and Elliott Scheirman in the general election for U.S. House Texas District 2 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Daniel Crenshaw (R)	55.6	192,828
		Sima Ladjevardian (D)	42.8	148,374
		Elliott Scheirman (L)	1.6	5,524

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 346,726
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary runoff election

The Democratic primary runoff election was canceled. Sima Ladjevardian advanced from the Democratic primary runoff for U.S. House Texas District 2.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Elisa Cardnell (D)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Texas District 2

Sima Ladjevardian and Elisa Cardnell advanced to a runoff. They defeated Travis Olsen in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Texas District 2 on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Sima Ladjevardian	47.6	26,536
✔		Elisa Cardnell	31.0	17,279
	Submit photo	Travis Olsen	21.3	11,881

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 55,696
= 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.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 2

Incumbent Daniel Crenshaw advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 2 on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Daniel Crenshaw	100.0	48,693

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 48,693
= 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. House Texas District 2

Elliott Scheirman defeated Laura Antoniou and Carol Unsicker in the Libertarian convention for U.S. House Texas District 2 on March 14, 2020.

		Candidate
	Submit photo	Laura Antoniou (L)
✔		Elliott Scheirman (L)
		Carol Unsicker (L)

---

	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.

Endorsements

To see a list of endorsements for Elisa Cardnell, click here.

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Elisa Cardnell completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Cardnell's 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.

My name is Elisa Cardnell and I'm a Navy vet, single mom, and teacher running for Congress in TX-02 against Dan Crenshaw. Ever since I was born on an Army base, service has been a part of my identity. After 9/11 I joined the Navy ROTC at Rice and served 5 years active duty. After my deployment I developed a pre-existing condition, and stepped down from active duty to join the Reserves. I found my calling in the classroom and continued to serve my community as a teacher. But while I was teaching I watched as Republicans tried to take away healthcare coverage for pre-existing conditions and did nothing about soaring drug prices. I left the reserves in April of 2018 and didn't know where to put all my energy. I saw numerous great female vets run and win, and thought that was something I could possibly do. But it wasn't until election night in 2018 when I saw Dan Crenshaw, a far right Republican, run and win in my district with less than 53% of the vote. It was then that I knew I had to step up and serve again.

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?

• Strong and safe schools
• Fix our healthcare system
• Get corporate money out of politics

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am personally passionate about fighting for our schools, our healthcare, and our democracy. As a teacher, I watched as high-stakes standardized tests took the creativity and critical thinking out of my students. At the same time it created a system of tests that better measure socio-economic status resulting in us underfunding our low-income community schools.

I also have multiple pre-existing conditions and have watched the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs over just the past few years. We need universal, affordable healthcare and to lower prescription drug costs. No one should go bankrupt because they got sick.

Finally, I swore an oath to protect our Constitution from enemies foreign and and domestic. Right now our democracy is under attack both by foreign actors who would influence our elections, and domestic actors who would rather be complicit than hold them accountable. At the same time, corporate money is polluting our elections and preventing anything from getting done in Washington. We must tackle Washington's corruption if we are going to protect our democracy.

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.

See also

2020 Elections

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Government

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Newsletters

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External links

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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)