Dear John,
Another surprise victory in Tarrant County!
You may know that Tarrant, home to Fort Worth and Arlington, is often called “the last reliably Red urban county in America.”
That may have been the case years ago, but today Tarrant is both a battleground and a bellwether for the rest of the state.
I became the first Democrat in decades to win it in 2018, and since then it has see-sawed between the parties.
Afraid of permanently losing power, Tarrant Republicans have used their control of the County Commissioners Court to try to reduce Democratic voting power.
First, they gerrymandered County Commissioner Alisa Simmons out of her district last year, hoping to silence her voice and the votes of her constituents.
Then, when Simmons fought back by running for County Judge, Republicans proposed to close nearly half of all voting locations in this county of more than two million people. You can probably guess that a significant number of those proposed closures were in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Well, last Tuesday, during the Commissioners Court meeting that was set to ratify the polling place closures, Alisa’s leadership inspired so many Tarrant County residents to come out in protest that the Republican majority on the Court were shamed into retreat.
They voted to postpone the issue to their September meeting, where we hope it will be put to rest once and for all.
This is a critically important victory for democracy and for Democrats in what I consider to be one of the most important counties in the state.
It’s another shocker on top of Taylor Rehmet’s stunning victory in a special election in Tarrant earlier this year, where he defeated the Republican candidate for State Senate by 14 points — the same district that Donald Trump won in 2024 by 17 points!
And to put a cherry on it, James Talarico just held a rally in Tarrant where more than 1,300 people came out to cheer him on in this “reliably Red county.”
Something exciting is happening in Texas.
It’s thanks to great leaders like Alisa, Taylor and James. And it’s thanks to amazing Texans like our Powered by People volunteers who helped power Taylor’s victory in January… are out there right now registering new Democratic voters in Tarrant to ensure Alisa is the next County Judge… and volunteering to make sure every person at James’ rallies is registered and ready to vote.
Thank you,
Beto
