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Endorses Frankfort

The race

Place 3 on the First Court of Appeals. The First Court of Appeals, sitting in Houston, hears civil and criminal appeals from trial courts in its multi-county Houston-area district. Six-year term, elected November 3, 2026 by the district's voters. Verified roster: Veronica Rivas-Molloy (D), the incumbent, vs. Todd Frankfort (R).

Veronica Rivas-Molloy — Incumbent. Elected in 2020. Before the bench: almost 20 years of practice, a federal clerkship in the Southern District of Texas, top-tier firm litigation and appellate work, hundreds of complex matters, and more than 20 jury trials across civil, criminal, and immigration cases; she graduated at the top of her University of Houston Law Center class. In her own earlier account she is a first-generation college graduate and immigrant who became the first Democratic elected Latina attorney on this court. The AWA endorsed her for re-election in 2026. Finance (Transparency USA): $108,070 contributed, $62,376 spent. Dirt check: no discipline or ethics record found in this pass; no single signature ruling was retrieved that defines her philosophy either way — her file is competence-and-service, and we price it as such.

Todd Frankfort — Challenger. Managing partner of O'Neil Wysocki Family Law — a working trial and family-law practice leader, not an appellate specialist. He won a contested Republican primary and a May 26 runoff to get here. Finance: $89,328 contributed, $107,458 spent — he has outspent the incumbent while raising less, a commitment signal and a burn-rate fact in one. Credits: firm leadership and a hard-fought nomination. Dirt check: no discipline found; the gap is structural — no appellate bench or appellate-practice record was retrieved for him, and no Vote411 answers from either candidate were captured in the guide beyond the question set.

Pros and cons

Rivas-Molloy: Pros: Six years on this court; deep litigation record before it; AWA endorsement; outraised her challenger. Cons: No documented restraint philosophy or break record; a Democratic incumbent on a court whose direction is the live question in Houston judicial politics. Frankfort: Pros: Trial-court-facing family-law experience — the docket's human end; won two primary rounds; spending like he means it. Cons: Unproven as an appellate judge in the full sense — no appellate record to judge; thinner appellate credentials than the incumbent by a wide margin.

Record gaps

Search record: Law.com's race coverage, the incumbent's published judicial Q&A, Vote411's Place 3 guide (questions published; answers not retrieved), Transparency USA finance, AWA endorsements, Secretary of State certification. No Houston Bar preference-poll figure for Place 3 was retrieved in this pass, and no philosophy statement by Frankfort was found on the sources worked — that absence is itself reported here rather than filled.

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Todd Frankfort. We apply the doctrine as written and state the cost honestly: where one candidate is the aligned challenger and the other is an incumbent with no documented restrained or break record, party alignment plus philosophy direction carries the call — and Frankfort is unproven, a watch posture, not a demerit and not a credential. Rivas-Molloy's record is the stronger conventional résumé, and voters who weight appellate experience above direction have a coherent choice in her; it is not ours.

Vote Frankfort.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

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Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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