After a contentious primary, will Tarrant County Republicans get on the same page?
The takedown of longtime Fort Worth political titan Betsy Price in the Tarrant County judge’s race came easily for Tim O’Hare, a 52-year-old Southlake attorney who hit all the conservative buzzwords in a grassroots campaign that got him nearly 57% of the vote. He will face off against Democrat Deborah Peoples for the seat come November.
The two candidates are polar opposites in policy and platform, giving Price supporters, moderates and independents a distinctive choice for the county’s highest position.
Price supporters who spoke to the Star-Telegram remain mostly undecided. An political expert and the county’s Republican Party said they believe that the county GOP may be able to land on the same page when the time comes, despite a schism and hurt feelings about the campaign.
Party primaries tend to favor the candidates on the far right or left, TCU political science professor James Riddlesperger said, leading to candidates who do not appeal to the voters in the center and, as a result, more dissatisfaction in government.
“I think most Betsy supporters will vote for Tim O’Hare,” Riddlesperger said. “I think that that’s almost certainly the case. But that doesn’t mean that they like the choice very much, right?”
Riddlesperger thinks the bigger question is what will happen to the independent vote. Peoples could have an opportunity to pick up votes because O’Hare has aligned himself so strongly with conservative social issues that could alienate them, he said.
Riddlesperger believes most voters don’t want to talk about the social issues O’Hare has pushed. Instead, they want a focus on the responsibilities of the county judge and commissioners court, which include maintaining roads, setting the tax rate and distributing stimulus funds.
O’Hare gleaned most of his support among Tarrant County’s northern suburbs that have been centerpieces in debates surrounding critical race theory, book bans in schools and the handling of the pandemic. Price, on the other hand, drew her support from those in Fort Worth.
The race mirrored others across the state and nation as Republicans sought strong positions on social issues, border security and limited government.
“Betsy Price was an outstanding candidate,” county Republican Party chair Rick Barnes said. “She brought a lot to the table for the people that had supported her in the past, but that was limited to Fort Worth. Tim was able to get out, work the entire county and got a lot of support from the grassroots, and so I think that was the biggest difference in that race.”
Barnes endorsed O’Hare early, and his argument for O’Hare’s candidacy falls back on what most Republicans have said about why they’re the best pick for the final ticket. O’Hare, Barnes said, is the “staunch conservative” the county needs, and he can maintain the Republican leadership the county’s historically been known for with the experience he brings to the table.
Roger DeFrang of south Arlington said his decision to vote for O’Hare came down to his involvement with the voters. He said he liked how O’Hare allowed people to make their own decisions without being a parade leader for their cause, and while DeFrang knows some social issues with the schools don’t fall under county discretion, he felt as though O’Hare could be a leader in taking a stance on them.
Lisa Grimaldi of Fort Worth cast her vote for O’Hare because she wanted someone in the judge’s seat who was more conservative. She said she didn’t like outgoing County Judge Glen Whitley’s response to the pandemic and his support of Price.
Grimaldi said O’Hare was someone who wasn’t afraid to speak on what he does and doesn’t support.
“Tim is just very much an unapologetic conservative,” she said.
With the O’Hare win comes a plethora of disappointed Price voters. In Parker Vandergriff’s mind, Price would’ve made one of the most dynamic judges in the county’s history.
It’s a generous compliment, considering Vandergriff’s grandfather is esteemed former Arlington mayor and county judge Tom Vandergriff, who built Arlington from the ground up and brought developments like Six Flags, the city’s first hospital and the Texas Rangers to the area. Vandergriff, while a Democrat during his time in Congress, served his time as county judge as a Republican.
Vandergriff said Price has been a family friend for decades, and that she’s the closest thing to Tom Vandergriff he’s seen.
“She’s Tarrant County,” Vandergriff said.
Races are partisan, Vandergriff said, but the judge’s position is not. He was disappointed in the negative tone the Republican race took and hoped the race for the win would be about the people, not politics. Vandergriff hasn’t made a decision on who he’s casting his vote for in November, but said the candidate who’s closer to the middle would be the one he supports.
Geoffrey Bray, who historically votes Republican, doesn’t normally vote in primaries but met met his wife at the polls late Tuesday to vote against ideals he’d seen spinning around the Republican Party. He didn’t end up getting a chance to vote.
Bray felt that over the course of O’Hare’s campaign, he was touting lies about Price.
During her latter part of her tenure as mayor, Price had to respond to Black Lives Matter protests, the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of Atatiana Jefferson by police in Fort Worth, all issues in which Bray believes the former mayor walked the line. In O’Hare’s campaign ads and mailers, Bray believes they were turned right back on Price.
At one point in the campaign cycle, Price released a Twitter video to address O’Hare’s claims and say they weren’t true.
O’Hare’s campaign style didn’t go under the radar on Price voter Bill Burgan’s end either. Burgan said he received around three to five pieces of mail a day during the primary cycle.
On the O’Hare mailers, Burgan said he wasn’t able to learn anything about O’Hare’s background, experiences and stance, but he knew everything about what O’Hare thought Price did wrong.
“It was very disturbing to me that he didn’t have anything to stand on his own,” Burgan said.
When reached for comment on people who have critiqued his campaign style, O’Hare said that his campaign spoke to issues voters wanted to hear about and that his victory was proof.
Burgan, who lives in Fort Worth’s Alliance area and has done campaigning for Price, said he was “shocked,” “nauseated” and “disappointed” when he saw O’Hare leading the race with the margin as wide as it was. He also noticed O’Hare had a stronger backing by the Republican Party than Price, and said that it seemed that the party had its people it wanted to win and those it didn’t.
Republican officials react
Price’s endorsement list included outgoing judge Glen Whitley, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, commissioner Gary Fickes and Fort Worth City Council members Cary Moon, Michael Crain and Leonard Firestone.
Since Price’s loss, Whitley, a Republican, hasn’t been shy about voicing his discontent with the turnout.
He told the Star-Telegram after early voting results came out that he was disappointed with what he saw and had been concerned about the rhetoric he saw throughout the campaign trail. Whitley said he thought the race would be more about the issues than the social aspects.
In a tweet Wednesday that didn’t explicitly mention O’Hare, Whitley expressed his disappointment that an attack campaign was successful in Tarrant County and said he hoped the race would shift to focus on issues and qualifications.
Barnes said he thought it was “unfortunate” that an official leaving office would say anything, and that he hoped Whitley would move toward party support in the future.
Where does support go next?
Whitley didn’t rule out making another endorsement in the race for county judge.
He believes the person in the county judge’s slot should be a uniter and not a divider, and that the issues on the job aren’t partisan. When the commissioners court provides services, it can’t just benefit one party over the other, Whitley said.
Parker couldn’t be reached for comment about who she would be supporting next.
Asked if her campaign would reach out to Price for support, Peoples said that she believed she needed to give Price some space. After losses, Peoples said, you need time to sit with it and heal, especially since this loss and race was tough for Price.
Peoples said it wasn’t appropriate and too early to ask for support. Instead, Peoples said she sent Price a note encouraging her to spend time with her grandchildren.
Peoples said she would continue to talk to people and that she wants the former mayor to feel good about the race she ran.
Price said she would be surprised if Peoples’ campaign reached out for her support, but that she’d gotten a text from Peoples the evening of the election.
“No matter what, I’m still a staunch Republican,” Price said. “Or maybe I’m still a staunch conservative is a better way to put it.”
Though there’s eight months between now and the general election, Bray is confident in his choice in who he’s picking for county judge — against O’Hare.
Burgan, unlike Bray, doesn’t know who he’ll vote for in the general election. He has his complaints with O’Hare, but isn’t quite comfortable casting a vote for Peoples either.
Moving forward in his race for county judge, O’Hare said that his campaign will simply be focused on how to win the spot, and said he was confident he could get Republican, independent and even some Democratic votes.
“We’re going to be making our case to voters all over Tarrant County and we’re looking forward to doing that in the coming months,” O’Hare said.
Barnes said Republicans are good at getting back on the same page once the primary’s over. He anticipated the party would get plenty of support for O’Hare come November.
“There’s just a little bit of time period here that has to happen after a primary election, particularly when it’s contentious,” Barnes said. “But we’ll be okay. We have work to do to bring some of that together, but we got plenty of time.”
