Two former Texas Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican governors are endorsing Democratic attorney general nominee Nathan Johnson over their party’s pick, Mayes Middleton.

The race to replace outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton as Texas’ top lawyer is, like many races this cycle, running tighter than usual. While Republicans have held the seat since John Cornyn was elected in 1998, several polls have Johnson within five points of Middleton.

Tom Phillips, who broke the Democrats’ stranglehold on the high court with his appointment as chief justice in 1987, and Deborah Hankinson, an appointee of then-Gov. George W. Bush, say they support Johnson’s nonpartisan approach to the agency. The attorney general’s office, which defends state agencies and statutes against legal challenges, frequently intersects with the state’s highest civil court, which has the final say on such cases.

“For attorney general, I look at who will follow the law and who will operate the office efficiently,” Phillips said. “That’s been Johnson’s emphasis, and Middleton’s has been more about using the office as a political tool to advance certain agendas.”

Hankinson and Phillips have both stepped outside the party before, endorsing Democrat Susan Hays over incumbent Sid Miller for agriculture commissioner in 2022. They represent the moderate Republicans and independents that Democrats will need to pick up if they want to break through the GOP’s decades-long dominance in statewide races.

The U.S. Senate race, where Paxton is trailing Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, is getting most of the attention. But the high court justices argue that attorney general, in particular, is a race voters should assess without the usual partisan lens.

“Almost everything the attorney general does is not a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or Democratic issue,” Phillips said. “If your former spouse owes you child support, you don’t care if the general’s a Republican or a Democrat, you want the money.”

Johnson is a third-term state senator who flipped his Dallas-area district from red to blue when he was elected in 2018. A lawyer and mediator, he touts his record of working across the aisle to pass bills in the GOP-dominated Texas Senate, and is running on an anti-corruption platform that promises to “restore the AG’s office to its true purpose.”

Middleton sits a few desks over from Johnson on the floor of the Senate, representing the Galveston area. Middleton has a law degree from the University of Texas but has worked exclusively for his family’s oil and gas company. He has talked about restoring the agency’s bureaucratic obligations, which have languished under Paxton, but his website leads with his allegiance to President Donald Trump and the conservative movement.

Middleton won the Republican primary earlier this year by branding himself “MAGA Mayes” in self-funded TV ads and promoting his record on legislation limiting what bathrooms trans people can use and putting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. He has promised to follow Paxton’s mold in keeping the office on the front lines of the nation’s culture wars.

Hankinson, who served on the Supreme Court from 1997 to 2002, said she was alarmed by Middleton’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, noting that whoever was elected will be attorney general through the 2028 election. She also said Middleton’s statements rejecting the long legal precedent supporting the separation of church and state are “outside the rule of law.”

Under Paxton, the Texas attorney general’s office has become increasingly political. Many Republicans — in Texas and nationally — see the agency as a key part of the national effort to enshrine conservative priorities through the courts.

On the other hand, Johnson is hoping to appeal to voters who are tired of seeing this agency “co-opted by a fringe faction of a single political party,” he said. “That has never, ever been the way this office ran, whether it was under Republican or Democratic stewardship.”

“I think we can appeal to independents and disaffected Republicans particularly with the attorney general’s office,” he said. “People know that the Office of the Attorney General has to be restored, and the rule of law is paramount to any partisan considerations.”