HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo will be seeking a third term as the county's top official, she told the Houston Chronicle during a live virtual chat Thursday.
Hidalgo has held the position since defeating then-incumbent and longtime County Judge Ed Emmett in 2018. That was her first time running for public office. The Colombian immigrant and Stanford graduate was the first Latina county judge.
In November 2022, she won her re-election bid over Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer.
Hidalgo took a nearly two-month leave of absence in September 2023 to seek in-patient mental health treatment for depression, which she has spoken openly about.
“There's a lot of stigma around mental health, and that's part of why I want to share this,” Hidalgo told CBS News' Ed O'Keefe when she returned. “The goal is for folks to see it as no different than a politician who suffers from high blood pressure, which I don't have, or has had a heart attack.”
The judge was embroiled in controversy when three of her ex-staffers were indicted in a bid-rigging scheme in which they were accused of steering a contract toward a vendor.
Hidalgo got off to a rocky start with newly elected Houston Mayor John Whitmire after she claimed he ignored her requests to meet. Then, after deadly storms hit Harris County and Houston mid-May, the two held their first joint press conference, but it wasn't without tension.
You can watch the interaction below: