How we build a candidate's record

Vote with Pride is a nonpartisan voter-education project of The Mosaic Project of South Texas, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We don't endorse, oppose or rate candidates on anything but their own public record on LGBTQIA+ issues, and we show the record itself, with sources, so you can judge it yourself.

What goes in a record

For every candidate on the Nueces County ballot we look for:

• Actions and statements: bills authored, votes, rulings, executive actions, policies, public statements and social-media posts that affirm or oppose LGBTQIA+ people's rights and safety. Each is labelled Affirming or Opposing.
• Events in the Coastal Bend: rallies, town halls and forums held in Corpus Christi and the surrounding counties.
• Affiliations and endorsements: endorsements from, membership in, or awards from groups with a public stance on LGBTQIA+ issues, either way.
• Third-party ratings and questionnaires: scorecards from groups such as Equality Texas or the Human Rights Campaign, and answers to our own questionnaire. These are shown but never counted in the indicator.
• Related local votes: votes on local disputes that touched LGBTQIA+ representation (for example, library-board appointments during the 2023–25 book dispute) but weren't argued in those terms on the record. Shown for context, not counted.

Our sourcing rules

• Every item links to a source we opened that supports it. Where possible we quote the candidate's own words.
• We prefer primary sources (legislative records, court opinions, council minutes, campaign sites, verified accounts), then established news outlets, and we label advocacy-group sources as such.
• We never infer a position from a candidate's party, faith, occupation or who endorsed them. A candidate with no record gets No public record found, not a guess.
• Judicial candidates are bound by conduct rules that limit what they can say; most will have little or no record, and that is expected.

How the counts are built

What we show today: a plain count of sourced affirming and opposing items for each candidate, with no summary label. The weighting below is how we would group a record if we ever showed labels; we don't apply any label now, and we never grade candidates against our own positions.

Each counted item gets a weight for how much it says about what a candidate does with power:

Weight 3	Signed or authored a bill, executive action, court ruling, lawsuit, other official action
Weight 2	Floor vote, co-sponsorship, policy set in office
Weight 1	Public statement, social-media post, questionnaire answer, endorsement from or membership in a group with a known stance
Not counted	Events, third-party scorecards, related local votes

The affirming share of the total weight sets the label:

The indicator summarises the items below it and nothing else. Two candidates with the same label can have very different records, so read the items.

Corrections and additions

If something is wrong, missing or out of date, email help@tmpst.org with a link to a source, or use the submission form. Candidates are welcome to send statements and questionnaire answers at any time; we post them as received.