HOUSTON, TX — The Blackwell for Senate campaign confirmed today it will not run negative attack ads against Senator Royce Whitman, even as Whitman and Governor David Acton continue funding ads targeting Rev. Dr. Eve Blackwell's ministry and record.

"We will draw honest comparisons. Voters deserve to see the distinctions. But we do not build a campaign on tearing a man down instead of lifting Texas up," said campaign spokesperson Karine Jefferson. "That's not who Dr. Blackwell is."

Known across Texas as "Lady Eve" from her years as first lady of Greater Cornerstone Cathedral, Blackwell built her public life long before holding office — organizing feeding programs for the homeless, coordinating services for families in crisis, and building mental health counseling for veterans, work she has continued quietly for years.

Statement from Rev. Dr. Eve Blackwell:

"I have never needed a stage to do the work. Long before my name was on a ballot, I was in the church basement organizing the food line, in the counseling room with a veteran nobody else had called back. That is not a campaign biography. That is how I was raised to move through the world.

"So I will not stand up here and tell you what is wrong with Royce Whitman. That is not the leader I have ever been. I will tell you what I have done, and let you set it beside what he has not.

"They have spent a great deal of money trying to make you afraid of me. Fear is loud. It is expensive. And it does not build a single thing. What I have built, I built quietly, and it is still standing.

"I did not enter public life to manage decline gracefully. I entered it to change what needed changing — in my church, my community, and now this state. That has only ever required me to show up, and keep showing up.

"I am Eve Blackwell, and she changes everything."