Lupe Valdez served as sheriff of Dallas County, Texas, from 2005 to 2017. She ran unsuccessfully for governor of Texas in 2018.
Valdez was born in San Antonio, Texas, on October 11, 1947. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in business administration from Southern Nazarene University and her Master of Arts in criminology and criminal justice from University of Texas at Arlington. She was an officer in the United States Army, where she attained the rank of captain. Her law enforcement career began as a jailer at a county jail then at a federal prison. She then became an agent of the General Services Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and eventually U.S. Customs Services. She was first elected Dallas County sheriff in 2005.