O’Hare, Simmons on the ballot for Tarrant County judge after years of clashes
After four years of rivalry on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court dais, Republican Tim O’Hare and Democrat Alisa Simmons will compete for the top office in the county.
Throughout their shared tenure on the Commissioners Court, O’Hare and Simmons have thrown jabs at one another and are often on opposing sides when the court splits in a vote.
During the county’s 2025 redistricting that flipped Simmons’ precinct, which she condemned as unnecessary and racist, the commissioner gave the middle finger to O’Hare after he interrupted her to call a closed session.
In April 2024, O’Hare told Simmons to “sit there and be quiet” while bickering about how their social media pages were political.
Both contenders won their party nominations by a landslide on March 3.
“The real race begins now,” Simmons said in a press release the next day.
Simmons said Tarrant families are tired of O’Hare’s bullying, silencing and antics. O’Hare framed the election as a choice between common-sense leadership and political theater.
“This general election will present voters with a stark choice: continue charting a different course than Dallas County or allow radical leftist policies to take hold in Tarrant County,” O’Hare said in a release.
O’Hare’s campaign is centered on the motto of “promises made, promises kept.”
With an endorsement from President Donald Trump, O’Hare ran in 2022 on transparency, lower property taxes and election integrity. He promised to cut property taxes by 20% and won the election by 6 percentage points against Democrat Deborah Peoples.
The tax rate, which is approved by the commissioners court annually, has fallen each year since O’Hare took office in 2023. The 2022 county tax rate was 22.4 cents per $100 valuation and in 2025, it was 18.63 cents, a 16.8% decrease.
Simmons, who also ran on lowering property taxes, argued against the 18.63 tax rate, saying it forced the budget to be cut beyond what is reasonable. The 2022 county budget of $904.7 million has been cut 8.8% to $825 million in 2026.
The commissioners will reevaluate the budget and tax rate again in October.
Simmons’ campaign priorities in 2022 were to keep the county’s budget fiscally sound while keeping residents’ needs in mind, improving public safety and expanding access to public health. Now, she is running on the same issues and promising to restore accountability and human dignity to the county jail.
O’Hare’s campaign resembles the one he ran in 2022, prioritizing lower taxes, election integrity and supporting law enforcement.
Election Day is Nov. 3, and early voting starts Oct. 19.