Turnout In Local Races

Tarrant County Illustration

Let’s take a quick spin through the outcomes and turnouts in local races that I was paying attention to in Tarrant County.

The municipal races historically have low turnout, as these are the roles that are a lot less sexy. BUT, they are the ones where your day to day life can be directly impacted, so yeah, the low turnout is frustrating.

Here is the Tarrant County turnout history for the last 10 years:

• 2015 - 9.04%

• 2017 - 8.62%

• 2019 - 8.35%

• 2021 - 14.17% (open Mayor’s seat)

• 2023 - 8.92%

And then there is 2025. We finished county wide with 7.99%. Really low. But, I can at least say the far right / Christian nationalism pushing factions lost pretty much across the board.

Let’s do a quick run through a few places, starting with…

School Boards

Fort Worth ISD District 1

• 35,387 Registered Voters

• 1,868 Votes Cast (5.3% turnout)

• Camille Rodriguez held onto her seat for another term, receiving 53.4% of the vote, defeating her For The Children PAC backed opponent

Fort Worth ISD District 7

• 51,391 Registered Voters

• 2,183 Votes Cast (4.2% turnout)

• Michael Ryan held onto his seat for another term, receiving 75.6% of the vote

Fort Worth ISD District 9

• 38,246 Registered Voters

• 2,037 Votes Cast (5.3% turnout)

• Roxanne Martinez held onto her seat for another term, receiving 73.5% of the vote

Grapevine-Colleyville ISD Place 3 (District wide seat)

• 75,193 Registered Voters

• 11,717 Votes Cast (15.6% turnout) Believe it or not, 15.6% is one of the two highest turnouts for the races I watched.

• Challenger Matt Foust defeated Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Tammy Nakamura, receiving 51.3% of the vote. This is a big one folks.

Hurst-Bedford-Euless ISD Place 2 (District wide seat)

• 114,462 Registered Voters

• 6,901 Votes Cast (6.0% turnout)

• John Biggan won the open seat, receiving 53.1% of the vote

Keller ISD Place 1 (District wide seat)

• 161,878 Registered Voters

• 14,721 Votes Cast (9.1% turnout)

• Challenger Randy Campbell won the open seat, previously held by Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Micah Young, receiving 52.7% of the vote. A big win for sanity.

Keller ISD Place 2 (District wide seat)

• 161,878 Registered Voters

• 14,730 Votes Cast (9.1% turnout)

• Challenger Jennifer Erickson defeated Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Joni Shaw-Smith, receiving 52.4% of the vote. ANOTHER big one.

Keller ISD Place 3 (District wide seat)

• 161,878 Registered Voters

• 14,509 Votes Cast (9.0% turnout)

• Chelsea Kelly was re-elected to a new full term, receiving 60.4% of the vote

Mansfield ISD Place 3 (District wide seat)

• 130,527 Registered Voters

• 12,269 Votes Cast (9.4% turnout)

• Challenger Jason Thomas defeated Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Craig Tipping, receiving 58% of the vote. Woop Woop!

Mansfield ISD Place 4 (District wide seat)

• 130,527 Registered Voters

• 12,356 Votes Cast (9.5% turnout)

• Challenger Ana-Alicia Horn defeated Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Keziah Valdes Farrar, receiving 60.3% of the vote. Two for Two!

Mansfield ISD Place 5 (District wide seat)

• 130,527 Registered Voters

• 12,163 Votes Cast (9.3% turnout)

• Challenger Jesse Cannon defeated Patriot Mobile backed incumbent Bianca Benavides Anderson, receiving 58.6% of the vote. A Clean Sweep!

For those keeping score, that is seven (7) of the eleven (11) seats that Patriot Mobile bought their way into in 2022, including three (3) each in Mansfield ISD and Keller ISD, that have seen a change back to people who support public schools and the diversity of our communities. It’s a really big deal.

Municipal Elections

I really only looked at a few areas for this one: Mansfield Mayor, Tarrant County College, and Fort Worth City Council. Let’s start with Mansfield, since we just finished with their school board.

City of Mansfield Mayor

• 51,752 Registered Voters

• 8,701 Votes Cast (16.8% turnout) Highest turnout for any race I tracked

• Incumbent Mayor Michael Evans defeated Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare and Tarrant GOP Chair Bo French backed challenger Julie Short, receiving 60.8% of the vote. A Clean Sweep!

It is worth mentioning that Tim O’Hare, the Tarrant County Judge, had this to say on the morning of Election Day:

Friends Julie Short - Manfield Mayor (LOST), Lori Williams - Mansfield Council (LOST) and Melisa Perez - Mansfield Council (Runoff), Farrar, Tipping, and Anderson for Mansfield ISD (All LOST), Tammy Nakamura - GCISD (LOST), and Cary Cheshire. Wonder how he did? That’s great segue. Let’s go there next!

Tarrant County College Trustee - District 7

• 193,866 Registered Voters

• 12,237 Votes Cast (6.3% turnout)

• In the Open Seat, Veronica Chavez Law defeated Empower Texans / Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Defending Texas Liberty, Texans United for a Conservative Majority, Texas Scorecard, Tarrant County Patriots, Vice Chair of the Tarrant GOP, friend of Tim O’Hare, candidate Cary Cheshire, receiving 52% of the vote. Can you tell this one makes me happy?

For those keeping score, Tim O’Hare didn’t see any of his friends win their election. Just one of eight even made a runoff. YIKES! Tim O’Hare does features prominently in something else I wrote over the weekend that you should check out (after you get through the rest of this post).

Now on to Fort Worth City Council. And I’ll be quick, as there weren’t any surprises, other than how low some of the turnouts were.

Fort Worth City Council, District 2

• 61,405 Registered Voters

• 1,849 Votes Cast (3.0% turnout)

• Carlos Flores was re-elected, receiving 73.7% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 3

• 102,933 Registered Voters

• 5,291 Votes Cast (5.1% turnout)

• Michael Crain was re-elected, receiving 71.6% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 4

• 78.718 Registered Voters

• 5,337 Votes Cast (6.8% turnout)

• Charles Lauersdorf was re-elected, receiving 74.5% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 5

• 75,932 Registered Voters

• 4,651 Votes Cast (6.1% turnout)

• Deborah Peoples won an open seat, receiving 54.3% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 6

• 89,197 Registered Voters

• 4,962 Votes Cast (5.6% turnout)

• In an open seat, Mia Hall received 46.8% of the vote and will go to a run-off with Daryl Davis. Of note, Mercy Culture Church endorsed Marshall Hobbs came in third, out of the runoff.

Fort Worth City Council, District 7

• 101,541 Registered Voters

• 3,159 Votes Cast (3.1% turnout)

• Macy Hill was re-elected, running unopposed

Fort Worth City Council, District 8

• 71,959 Registered Voters

• 2,314 Votes Cast (3.2% turnout)

• Chris Nettles was re-elected, receiving 74.1% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 9

• 71,177 Registered Voters

• 5,052 Votes Cast (7.1% turnout)

• Elizabeth Beck was re-elected, receiving 65.6% of the vote

Fort Worth City Council, District 10

• 84,611 Registered Voters

• 3,147 Votes Cast (3.7% turnout)

• Alan Blaylock was re-elected, running unopposed

Fort Worth City Council, District 11

• 63,982 Registered Voters

• 2,235 Votes Cast (3.5% turnout)

• Jeanette Martinez was re-elected, receiving 77% of the vote

Fort Worth Mayor

• 633,360 Registered Voters

• 39,212 Votes Cast (6.2% turnout)

• Mattie Parker was re-elected, receiving 66.5% of the vote and 99.5% of the Campaign Finance contributions ($884,631 vs the only other candidate who raised money, who received $4,702)

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So even with a County turnout of 7.99%, you can see how individual races saw much different (but still OMG low) levels of turnout.

The big question for me is how do we build upon this? It certainly isn’t by resting on our laurels and patting ourselves on the back. Winning some of these elections, beating the extremes in School Boards, it doesn’t mean we should be tacking to the middle. Mendi had some important thoughts on this yesterday and I want to include them in full to close this out.

There’s a lot to celebrate from yesterday’s municipal elections in TX. But I want to caution people about the “Republicans are changing” narrative that always pops up.

Munis ≠ General. VERY low turnout. And when the rubber meets the road, Republicans are going to vote for the “R” in a General. You can assume “moderate Republicans” will win primaries and save us. But R’s will ultimately do what the Party demands. Republicans like Charlie Geren (TX House Representative from Fort Worth) just voted for vouchers.

Point being, please be wary of anyone who is once again trying to tell you the answer is appeal to and appease “moderate Republicans” rather than doing everything possible to tap into “likely D registered voters who aren’t voting” in diverse, urban/suburban communities.

~Mendi Tackett

There ya have it. See it. Name it. Fight it.