Youngest Grand Prairie city council member to become one of the youngest elected state representatives

The youngest city council member ever to be elected in the city of Grand Prairie will soon become one of the youngest elected state representatives.

27-year-old Junior Ezeonu is the Democratic State Representative-Elect for the 101st District after defeating veteran Texas House member Chris Turner by a 53% to 47% margin in the Democratic primary on March 3. 

Eye on Politics reporter Jack Fink asked him what the key was to earning more votes than Turner.

 "We worked really hard, ran on issues that were very important to my constituents, issues that really matter to Texas voters, regardless of party, but especially on the Democratic side," said Ezeonu. 

"When we talk about affordability and trying to lower costs for people and just make their lives a little bit better, that's what we focused on. And the voters really resonated with that." 

Jack asked Ezeonu how Jasmine Crockett and James Talario's campaigns in the race for U.S. Senate affected his own.

"It helped and it hurt," said Ezeonu. "Jasmine and James both ran great campaigns, brought out a lot of new people. I was significantly outraised... Mr. Turner was able to, you know, run a lot of ads on television and connect with a lot more people just by visibility... I didn't have the money to really get my name across the board everywhere for people to see me, because for a lot of those new voters, they were focused on voting for Jasmine or James." 

Ezeonu said that his focus on issues that impact Gen Z, millennials and younger Gen Xers are what helped him win. At the top of the list is housing.

"I think for one of them in particular, we can find a lot of bipartisan support. And that's in banning private equity and institutional investors from buying single-family homes," said Ezeonu.

"So a lot of people, regardless of party, Democrat or Republican, are supporting that because young people and just people that are middle-aged are unable to buy single-family homes." 

Ezeonu also said his focus is on public education funding. He doesn't believe that there were enough increases to public education funding in the last legislative session, and doesn't agree with the new school voucher program.

"They called it 'school choice'; I call it 'private school voucher handouts,'" said Ezeonu. "But definitely increasing the public school funding. When we look at the per-pupil allotment, trying to get it up to that $10,000 average. And that's what it is on the national level. The national average for a per-pupil allotment of $10,000 on the state level here in Texas is just under $7,000. So we have to increase that. We also have to find other ways to increase teacher pay." 

Ezeonu faces no Republican in the November election, and he will be sworn in January 2027. 

This week's full episode can be found below: