After a long, tense day at the polls, Pooja Sethi said that she was looking forward to some much-needed rest after winning the Democratic primary in the Texas House, District 47 race.
Sethi, who formerly served as chief of staff for former HD 47 Rep. Vikki Goodwin, celebrated as she beat out – by a substantial margin – the only other Dem candidate in the primary, Joseph Kopser, an Army veteran and tech entrepreneur who entered the race on deadline day.
Sitting at El Arroyo in Downtown Austin alongside fellow candidates Goodwin, Sarah Eckhardt, and Holly Taylor (running for lieutenant governor, comptroller, and Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9, respectively), Sethi said she had been anticipating this moment since she first filed for the race. After all, as she told the Chronicle in January, she has “no other aspirations” outside of representing the district.
As the numbers began to roll in, Sethi said she was “a little flabbergasted,” and that the victory hasn’t fully sunk in just yet. Nevertheless, she understands that her work is just beginning as she heads to November’s general election. Sethi said that she plans to execute another victory in the fall with the same campaign tactics she used to win this primary: block walking, reaching out to all voters in the district, and making sure their voices are heard.
“We need to make sure everyone has a voice, because, honestly, what the other side is giving is not a voice to everybody. People are really hurt and angry, and so we need to keep having conversations and getting out the vote.”
When we spoke to Sethi in January about her initial plans if elected to represent the district, she said that the first bill she plans to reintroduce is House Bill 2744, the “raise the age” bill that would require Texans to be 21 years old to purchase a semiautomatic rifle. Following this past weekend’s tragic mass shooting, the bill remains at the forefront of her mind. “It’s the first bill I will be filing. … We need it. Being silent is not an option,” Sethi said.
As Goodwin closely watched results come in for the lieutenant governor primary, where she is headed to a runoff against Marcos Vélez, she told the Chronicle she is confident Sethi’s experience serving as her chief of staff will propel her to success in the House.
“I think she’s such a hard worker,” Goodwin said. “We have a lot of things in common, and so I think her background will just make it very easy for her to step into that House seat.”
Sethi will now work to court undecided independent and Republican voters ahead of November’s general election against the lone Republican candidate, Jennifer Mushtaler. If successful, Sethi will become the first Asian Democratic woman, the first Indian, and the first Hindu in the Texas Legislature, she told the El Arroyo crowd late on Tuesday night. Confident that she will be able to carry the momentum into November, she said that she “really cannot wait to rub it into their Christian nationalist faces.”
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This article appears in March 6 • 2026.