In Texas, the GOP’s Last Urban Stronghold Swings Blue

The blue wave that helped Texas Democrats win their first statewide offices in more than three decades is also set to reshape policy in Republicans’ last urban stronghold in the state.

In Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth, Democrat Alisa Simmons decisively beat incumbent GOP county executive Tim O’Hare—a MAGA acolyte who, during his single term in countywide office, helped fan baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and who fought to suppress community outrage over local jail deaths and voting restrictions. Simmons’ win Tuesday night appears to be part of a larger shift to the left in Fort Worth that would usher in a new Democratic majority on the county’s five-member governing board and a new Democratic district attorney.

Simmons last year became a prime target for the Republicans who have long dominated Tarrant County government, when the GOP majority on the county board gerrymandered the local electoral maps to favor their party’s candidates and push her out of office—prompting Simmons to run for countywide office this year instead of seeking reelection in her newly redrawn district. 

Celebrating her win and that of other local Democratic candidates who prevailed in Tarrant County on Tuesday night, Simmons told supporters, “You can expect us to manage this county with heart, compassion, personal responsibility, justice and ethics.” 

Simmons has been one of the loudest champions of local advocates for criminal justice reform since being elected to Tarrant County’s governing board, called the commissioners court, in 2022—from organizing press conferences with families grieving the loss of loved ones at the county’s notoriously deadly jail, to hosting county forums to discuss jail conditions and clashing with the local GOP sheriff during county board meetings. 

Pamela Young, executive director of United Fort Worth and a longtime organizer for criminal justice reform in North Texas, told Bolts that she’s hoping for Simmons to rally for criminal justice reforms as county executive. “Our current county judge and the majority on that court, they haven’t been doing their job—they’ve been erecting Ten Commandments statues, they’ve been enacting draconian rules in the courtroom, and throwing people out for calling them racist.”

Jail oversight and ballot access have become flashpoints for Tarrant County politics in recent years, in part because of Simmons’ pushback on the county board. While she advocated for people who lost loved ones at the county jail, O’Hare, her opponent on Tuesday, had grieving family members and local organizers removed from county hearings for confronting the board over deadly local jail conditions. 

O’Hare also drew community pushback earlier this year for championing a plan to dramatically reduce the number of county polling places during the midterm elections. As citizens crowded county hearings to decry the plan, O’Hare pushed to curtail critical public testimony and even had citizens removed and arrested for pushing back against the plan—including a former lawmaker who represented Fort Worth in the state legislature for nearly two decades and local activists like EJ Carrion. 

Carrion, who is still facing misdemeanor charges for speaking out earlier this year at a county hearing to axe polling places, says Simmons’ win marks a sea change for Tarrant County. “Alisa Simmons winning is more valuable to Tarrant County than James Talarico,” he told Bolts. “Tarrant County has been the epicenter of extremism, but now it’s becoming the epicenter of change.” 

Simmons’ win in Tarrant County is also particularly meaningful for organizers in Texas who have fought for jail reforms in recent years. As Bolts has previously reported, Simmons has pushed back for years against Bill Waybourn, the local Republican sheriff who has seen jail deaths increase on his watch. Krishaveni Gundu, the co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project, who had been closely watching Simmons’ race, says her win represents “a significant and exciting victory for transparency and accountability” over jail deaths in the state. 

Waybourn’s management of jail death was also aided by another local Republican ally, DA Phil Sorrels, who wrote a letter to the state attorney general arguing for limiting investigations into some deaths of people under custody. 

Sorrels lost his reelection race Tuesday to Democrat Tiffany Burks, who campaigned alongside Simmons, adding to the shake-up in local government.

“Under Simmons’ leadership, we look forward to the commissioners’ court holding the sheriff’s office and county jail more accountable,” Gundu told Bolts. “We are hopeful that she will succeed in translating the voters’ mandate into meaningful, substantive change.”