Will Fort Worth area Democrats survive competitive primaries to flip red seats blue?
Democrats are ardently working to wrestle the 150-member Texas House from Republican control for the first time in nearly two decades. They’re effectively nine seats away, and Democrats are betting on picking up some of Tarrant County’s historically red seats to usher in that new era.
The stakes are high: the party in power will have a greater say in redrawing political boundaries for the next decade.
But first, Democratic candidates will have to devote money and messaging to emerge from the March 3 primary in order to have a chance at taking on their Republican opponents.
Candidates, lawmakers and strategists largely think the competitive primaries will help — not hurt — Democrats’ chances to flip red seats blue.
“Good candidates oftentimes become even better during contested primaries, and usually the things that good candidates do during a primary end up helping them in the general election,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist and director of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee.
And while competitive primaries often call for more resources earlier, and can sometimes sow discord within a party, in Tarrant County, anything to help raise the Democratic Party’s profile will be an asset, said James Riddlesperger, a political science professor at TCU.
“The Democrats have not been competitive in Tarrant County for a generation now,” Riddlesperger said. “What the Democrats are trying to do at this point is demonstrate that they can be competitive in some of these elections, where they haven’t been competitive in the past.”
Lessons from Powell
And Tarrant County Democrats don’t have to look far for a recent success story. In 2018, Sen. Beverly Powell, a Democrat from Burleson, prevailed in her Democratic primary and went on to defeat Republican incumbent Konni Burton, who had held the seat for four years.
Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, was an early supporter of Powell’s and said the race between Powell and her Democratic challenger, Allison Campolo, ultimately energized voters.
The competitive primary “enabled her to get her name out there sooner, got voters to focus on why this race was so important — because it was the most competitive district in the state. And it set up a good contrast to the incumbent who ultimately was defeated,” Turner, the House Democratic Caucus chair, told reporters last week.
For Powell, a competitive primary required her to use to her resources wisely — and that meant emphasizing her experience.
“We used our resources to make sure that people understood that I was a staunch pro-public education advocate, and that I believed in higher education and workforce development as a path to success for families,” Powell said.
And it helped that once Powell won the primary, Campolo, her Democratic opponent, threw her weight behind supporting her — through block walks and more.
“I tried to very visibly make sure that everyone understood that I’m going to be for Beverly, you should be supporting Beverly,” Campolo said. “That immediate action from the loser is so important to being able to move forward in a productive way.”
And it’s an approach many of the Democratic candidates in Tarrant County’s contested primaries said they plan to employ in order to see a Democrat win come November.
“After all, we have the same goals in mind,” Powell said.
Vying for the candidacy
Garry Jones, who was Powell’s campaign manager and is now the senator’s chief of staff, said a competitive primary means candidates have more time to familiarize themselves with Democratic voters.
“It’s important that you energize your core Democratic voters, but it’s also important that you talk about the issues that the voters who are going to put you into office care about — education, property taxes, health care,” Jones said. “Those are going to be issues that are going to resonate in every corner of Tarrant County.”
Democratic candidates in the races for House Districts 92 and 97 said the competitive primaries have helped them start early. Elizabeth Beck, who is running to unseat Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, said the competitive primary against ophthalmologist and fellow Democratic candidate Dan Willis is “a net positive” that is helping get voters geared up sooner rather than later.
Fundraising will be an important aspect too. According to the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission that cover activity from July through December, Beck has nearly $66,600 on hand and has far outraised Willis, who reported $0. But Beck still only has a fraction of the nearly $660,000 Goldman has stockpiled.
“You don’t necessarily have to raise more than the Republicans,” Angle said. “But you have to raise enough to tell your story, to do your work.”
Jeff Whitfield, an attorney who is one of two Democrats running to replace outgoing Republican Rep. Jonathan Stickland, said the fact that three Republican candidates are also vying for the open seat means voters won’t have an incumbent choice to fall back on.
“This process is going to engage all voters and I think it’s going to make people pay attention to their options in a way that they wouldn’t have,” said Whitfield, who has raised more than any of his Democratic or Republican opponents, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
As the lone Democrat to challenge Stickland in 2018, Steve Riddell narrowly lost, claiming 47.43% of the vote to Stickland’s 49.8%. Now, Riddell said he welcomes having to face off in the primary, because it ultimately means voters have more choices — an option they haven’t always had in Tarrant County.
From 2008 to 2018, Tarrant County races for the Texas House have seen only a handful of competitive Democratic primaries, while Republicans have had more than 20.
“That’s a pretty neat thing. We have not had a lot of super contested primaries,” Riddell said. “Whenever we had candidates running on the Democratic ticket in Tarrant County, it was always like more of an afterthought.”
Campolo, who founded Tarrant Together, a group that aims to turn the county blue, likened it to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“People say that Tarrant County is red, so it stays red, right. People don’t give the Democratic voters here in Tarrant County the attention that they deserve, that they need,” Campolo said.
But in 2020, efforts on both a local and national level are being deployed to ensure the momentum from 2018 — when House Democrats gained 12 seats and Tarrant County went blue for Beto O’Rourke over Ted Cruz in the race for U.S. Senate — keeps building.
While Rick Barnes, the chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, said many of the county’s incumbents are in a comfortable position without primary challengers — the party doesn’t want to get too comfortable.
“That’s a dangerous position to get in in the world of elections,” Barnes said. “We hear that message from the other side. But we don’t let that play into our decision-making because we’re going to put forth our best candidates.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Celia Israel, a Democrat from Austin and chair of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, told reporters last week that the group is ready to capitalize on 2018’s “dynamic energy.”
“It doesn’t take much explaining for people to understand, you’re only nine seats away,” Israel said. “History is around the corner.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 9:32 AM.
