Janis Holt

Republican Party

Candidate, Texas House of Representatives District 18

Texas House of Representatives District 18

Tenure

2025 - Present

Term ends

2027

Years in position

1

Predecessor:Ernest Bailes (R)

Compensation

Base salary

$7,200/year

Per diem

$221/day

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 5, 2024

Next election

March 3, 2026

Education

High school

Port Neches Groves High School

Bachelor's

Lamar University, 1994

Personal

Birthplace

Silsbee, TX

Profession

Educator

Contact

Official website

Official Facebook

Campaign website

Personal Facebook

Personal X

Personal Instagram

Personal LinkedIn

Janis Holt (Republican Party) is a member of theTexas House of Representatives, representingDistrict 18. She assumed office on January 14, 2025. Her current term ends on January 12, 2027.

Holt (Republican Party) is running for re-election to theTexas House of Representatives to representDistrict 18. She is on the ballot in the Republican primary onMarch 3, 2026.^[source]

Holt completed Ballotpedia'sCandidate Connection survey in 2026.Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Janis Holt was born in Silsbee,Texas. She graduated from Port Neches Groves High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Lamar University in 1994. Her career experience includes working as an air purification business owner and educator.^[1][2]

Sponsored legislation

The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according toBillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.

Elections

2026

See also: Texas House of Representatives elections, 2026

General election

The primary will occur on March 3, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.

Democratic primary

Democratic primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18

Valorie Barton (D) is running in the Democratic primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on March 3, 2026.

		Candidate
	Submit photo	Valorie Barton

---

	There are noincumbents in this race.
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Republican primary

Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18

IncumbentJanis Holt (R) is running in the Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on March 3, 2026.

		Candidate
		Janis Holt

---

	Incumbents arebolded and underlined.
= candidate completed theBallotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

2024

See also: Texas House of Representatives elections, 2024

General election

General election for Texas House of Representatives District 18

Janis Holt defeatedSeth Steele in the general election for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on November 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Janis Holt (R)	86.6	69,326
	Submit photo	Seth Steele (L)	13.4	10,749

---

	There were noincumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 80,075
= candidate completed theBallotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you,complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data?Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Shanna Steele (L)

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18

Janis Holt defeated incumbentErnest Bailes andStephen Missick in the Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on March 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Janis Holt	53.2	15,014
		Ernest Bailes	38.8	10,952
		Stephen Missick	8.0	2,258

---

	Incumbents arebolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 28,224
= candidate completed theBallotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you,complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data?Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Robert Duke (R)

Libertarian convention

Libertarian convention for Texas House of Representatives District 18

Shanna Steele advanced from the Libertarian convention for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on March 23, 2024.

		Candidate
✔		Shanna Steele (L)

---

	There were noincumbents in this race. The results have been certified.
= candidate completed theBallotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you,complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data?Contact our sales team.

Campaign finance

Endorsements

2022

See also: Texas House of Representatives elections, 2022

General election

The general election was canceled. IncumbentErnest Bailes won election in the general election for Texas House of Representatives District 18.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18

IncumbentErnest Bailes defeatedJanis Holt,Ronnie Tullos, andStephen Missick in the Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 18 on March 1, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Ernest Bailes	56.2	12,742
		Janis Holt	26.4	5,995
		Ronnie Tullos	11.6	2,631
		Stephen Missick	5.8	1,313

---

	Incumbents arebolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 22,681
= candidate completed theBallotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you,complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data?Contact our sales team.

Campaign finance

Campaign themes

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also:Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Janis Holt completedBallotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Holt's responses.

Expand all |Collapse all

2024

Janis Holt did not completeBallotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

2022

Janis Holt did not completeBallotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf.Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at theFEC website. Clickhere for more on federal campaign finance law andhere for more on state campaign finance law.

2016 Republican National Convention

Holt wasan at-large delegate to the2016 Republican National Convention fromTexas. Holt was one of 104 delegates from Texas bound by state party rules to supportTed Cruz at the convention.^[3] Cruz suspended his campaign on May 3, 2016. At the time, he had approximately546 bound delegates. For more on what happened to his delegates, seethis page.

Delegate rules

See also:RNC delegate guidelines from Texas, 2016 andRepublican delegates from Texas, 2016

At-large delegates from Texas to the national convention were selected by a state nominations committee and approved by the Texas State GOP Convention in May 2016. District-level delegates were elected by congressional districts at the state convention and then approved by the convention as a whole. At the national convention, all delegates were bound on the first ballot unless their candidate withdrew from the race or released his or her delegates. A delegate remained bound on the second ballot if his or her candidate received at least 20 percent of the total vote on the first ballot. On the third and subsequent ballots, all delegates were to become unbound.

Texas primary results

See also:Presidential election in Texas, 2016

Texas Republican Primary, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes	Delegates
Jeb Bush	1.2%	35,420	0
Ben Carson	4.2%	117,969	0
Chris Christie	0.1%	3,448	0
Ted Cruz	43.8%	1,241,118	104
Carly Fiorina	0.1%	3,247	0
Lindsey Graham	0.1%	1,706	0
Elizabeth Gray	0.2%	5,449	0
Mike Huckabee	0.2%	6,226	0
John Kasich	4.2%	120,473	0
Rand Paul	0.3%	8,000	0
Marco Rubio	17.7%	503,055	3
Rick Santorum	0.1%	2,006	0
Donald Trump	26.8%	758,762	48
Other	1%	29,609	0
Totals		2,836,488	155
Source:Texas Secretary of State andCNN

Delegate allocation

See also:2016 presidential nominations: calendar and delegate rules

Texas had 155 delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Of this total, 108 were district-level delegates (three for each of the state's 36 congressional districts). District-level delegates were allocated on a proportional basis; a candidate had to win at least 20 percent of the primary vote in a district in order to be eligible to receive any of that district's delegates. If only one candidate met the 20 percent threshold in a district, he or she won all of the district's delegates. If two candidates met this threshold, the first place finisher received two of the district's delegates; the second place finisher received the remaining delegate. If no candidate won 20 percent of the vote, the top three finishers in a district each received one of the district's delegates. If a candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote in a district, he or she received all of the district's delegates.^[4][5]

Of the remaining 47 delegates, 44 served at large. At-large delegates were allocated on a proportional basis; a candidate had to win at least 20 percent of the statewide primary vote in order to be eligible to receive any of the state's at-large delegates. If only one candidate broke the 20 percent threshold, the second place finisher still received a portion of the state's at-large delegates. If a candidate won more than 50 percent of the statewide vote, he or she received all of the state's at-large delegates. In addition, three national party leaders (identified on the chart below as RNC delegates) served as bound delegates to the Republican National Convention.^[4][5]

Scorecards

See also:State legislative scorecards andState legislative scorecards in Texas

Ascorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.

Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.

Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Texas scorecards, email suggestions toeditor@ballotpedia.org.

See also

2026 Elections

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External links

Footnotes

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