The district has been reliably Republican; President
Donald Trump carried it by a more-than-20-point margin in 2016. Rep.
Blake Farenthold resigned on April 6, 2018, due to allegations of sexual harassment, therefore a special election was needed in order to fill this seat until the 2018 midterms. Consequently, on April 23, 2018, Texas Attorney General
Ken Paxton approved of Governor
Greg Abbott's plan to call a special election.
Michael Cloud won this election, and served the remainder of Farenthold's term in the
115th Congress, until January 2019. He previously
won the Republican runoff for the same seat, so he appeared on the November ballot and went on to win the general election. ==Candidates==