Eric Johnson Bio
Eric Lynn Johnson (born October 10, 1975) is an American politician and attorney who has served as the 60th mayor of Dallas, Texas, since June 2019. A former Democrat, he joined the Republican Party in September 2023 and is one of the most recognizable municipal leaders in Texas. Before becoming mayor, Johnson represented the 100th District in the Texas House of Representatives and built a career as a corporate attorney at major national law firms. He is also a partner at the international law firm Locke Lord LLP.
As mayor of one of the largest cities in the United States, Johnson has focused on public safety, economic development, lower property taxes, and the city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. His tenure has been marked by a “Back to Basics” and “Build for the Future” agenda aimed at strengthening city services and attracting new investment to Dallas.
Early Life and Background
Early Life and Background
Eric Lynn Johnson was born on October 10, 1975, in Dallas, Texas, and grew up in the same city he now leads. He attended schools within the Dallas Independent School District until the second grade, when he received a scholarship through the West Dallas Boys & Girls Club to attend Greenhill School, a private school in the area. Johnson graduated from Greenhill School in 1994.
Johnson went on to attend Harvard University, where he lived in Cabot House and graduated cum laude in 1998 with a degree in history. During his time at Harvard, he was initiated into Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, led community service efforts for the Harvard Black Students Association, and received the John Lord O’Brian and Stride Rite scholarships for his commitment to service. The summer between his junior and senior years, he studied public policy at the University of California at Berkeley as part of the Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellowship Program.
After Harvard, Johnson worked briefly as an investment banker with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and then served as an aide to Texas State Representative Yvonne Davis. He later earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was a public-interest scholar and a member of the Journal of International Economic Law, and a Master of Public Affairs from the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, both in 2003.
Path to US Politics
Path to US Politics
Johnson’s entry into public life began in Austin, where he served as a legislative aide to Yvonne Davis. That experience exposed him to state-level policymaking and laid the groundwork for his later run for office. After law school and graduate school, he returned to Dallas and joined major law firms, including Haynes and Boone, Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, while becoming more active in local civic and political circles.
He was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in November 2003 and built a career as a corporate attorney while laying the foundation for his political ambitions. In 2010, Johnson won the Democratic primary for the 100th District with 75 percent of the vote, defeating a longtime incumbent who was under federal indictment, and was sworn in as a member of the Texas House of Representatives on April 20, 2010.
Eric Johnson Career
Early Career (2010–2018)
Johnson represented the 100th District in the Texas House of Representatives, which included parts of Dallas and Mesquite. He founded and chaired the Young Texans Legislative Caucus, an organization focused on transportation, education, water, and infrastructure. He also served as vice chairman of both the House Natural Resources Committee and the House General Investigating and Ethics Committee, making him the only member of the 83rd Texas Legislature to hold two vice chairmanships.
He was reelected in November 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, building a record on ethics, transparency, and higher-education governance. In October 2017, he filed a request to remove a Confederate plaque from the Texas State Capitol, and the State Preservation Board unanimously voted in 2019 to remove it.
Mayoral Election and Inauguration (2019)
On June 8, 2019, Johnson was elected mayor of Dallas in a runoff, defeating city councilman Scott Griggs. He became the second African-American mayor elected in Dallas history, after Ron Kirk, and one of the youngest mayors of a major American city at the time. He was sworn in on June 17, 2019, by U.S. District Court Judge Sam Lindsay.
In his inaugural address, Johnson vowed to bring civility back to Dallas City Hall, a stance some observers viewed as a pointed departure from the tone of recent council debates. Early in his term, he guided the city through an EF-3 tornado and pushed for federal disaster assistance.
Public Safety and Economic Development (2020–2022)
Johnson repeatedly identified public safety as his top priority. He formed the Mayor’s Task Force on Safe Communities after the death of nine-year-old Brandoniya Bennett and won nearly $4.5 million in council funding for its recommendations. In 2021, he pushed for a major increase in police hiring, and the council approved a plan to add 200 officers over two years. Dallas became the only top-10 U.S. city to see violent crime fall in all major Federal Bureau of Investigation categories in both 2021 and 2022.
He also launched Dallas Works in 2020, a summer jobs program for Dallas youth, and created the Mayor’s International Advisory Council, a group of former United States ambassadors. In 2022, the council helped open a new French Trade Office in the newly established Dallas International District. During his tenure, the city added more than $14 billion in new development and welcomed major companies such as Goldman Sachs, AECOM, CBRE, and Frontier Communications, while reducing the property tax rate every year, including the largest single-year cut in 40 years in 2022.
COVID-19 Response (2020–2021)
Johnson declared a local state of disaster in March 2020 after evidence of community spread of COVID-19 emerged in Dallas. He created two recovery and assistance committees, started a private-sector task force on economic recovery, required hospitals to report daily capacity numbers, and appointed a COVID-19 health and healthcare access czar. He also advocated for direct allocations of vaccines to the city in 2021 and publicly received the vaccine to discourage hesitancy. He contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19 in October 2021.
Party Switch and Re-election (2023)
In May 2023, Johnson was re-elected as mayor with 93 percent of the vote, the highest share for any candidate in Dallas since 1909. On September 22, 2023, he announced he was switching parties to become a Republican, citing his views on police, low property taxes, and abortion. The move made Dallas the largest city in the United States with a Republican mayor, surpassing neighboring Fort Worth. In July 2024, Johnson made his first appearance at the Republican National Convention.
Eric Johnson Career Wins
Eric Johnson’s career is defined by two landmark political wins: his 2019 runoff election that made him the 60th mayor of Dallas, and his 2023 re-election with 93 percent of the vote, the largest margin in more than a century. Before those victories, he had already won a 2010 Democratic primary for the 100th District with 75 percent of the vote and was subsequently reelected five times to the Texas House of Representatives.
Mayoral Wins
Johnson first won the mayor’s office in 2019 by defeating city councilman Scott Griggs in a runoff election. He then secured a sweeping re-election in May 2023, drawing the highest vote share of any candidate in a Dallas municipal election since 1909.
Legislative Wins
In 2010, Johnson won a Democratic primary with 75 percent of the vote against a federal incumbent and went on to win five consecutive November elections for the Texas House in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, building one of the more consistent electoral records in the chamber during that period.
Eric Johnson Family
Family Background and Personal Life
Eric Lynn Johnson was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and continues to reside in the city. He is a member of Mountain View Church of Christ in Dallas.
Personal Life
Johnson is divorced, and he lives and works in Dallas, where he serves as mayor and as a partner at the international law firm Locke Lord LLP.