Don Huffines

Huffines is a fifth generation Texan, born in Dallas in Dallas County. He has two older brothers, James and Ray, and an identical twin brother, Phillip, with whom he operates Huffines Communities, a large real-estate development company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Don Huffines' grandfather, James Lecil "J.L." Huffines, started the Huffines Motor Company in Denton, Texas, in 1924 which has grown into a large network of metroplex dealerships and is currently run by Ray Huffines.[1][2][3]

The district encompasses a part of increasingly Democratic Dallas County, Texas. Huffines unseated Senator John J. Carona by a narrow margin in the Republican primary election held on March 4, 2014. A combined $6.3 million was spent by both candidates in the critical primary race.

In the November 4 general election, Huffines's Libertarian challenger, Mike Dooling, dropped out of the race, and Huffines hence ran unopposed.[4] Huffines campaigned on the themes of term limits, school choice, funding highway construction, opposing new toll roads, and cutting taxes.[5]

Huffines was unseated in his bid for a second Senate term in the general election held on November 6, 2018. He received 134,412 votes (45.9 percent) to the Democrat Nathan M. Johnson, who polled 158,216 (54.1 percent).[6]

Huffines' twin brother, Phillip, lost a 2018 primary bid for the District 8 seat in the state senate to Angela Paxton, the wife of state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who went on to hold the seat in the general election.

In 2017, Huffines introduced legislation to require a 30 percent voter turnout for any bond election in Texas to be successful. Most such elections currently draw fewer than 10 percent of voters to the polls. The San Antonio Express-News claimed that were Huffines' bill to become law, the result would be "effectively putting most taxing entities out of the bond business. The consequences could be devastating for cash-strapped school districts in need of new facilities."[7] Huffines supported his twin brother's Republican primary bid for the District 8 state senate seat in the 2018 election cycle.[8]