‘Election filing chaos.’ Tarrant GOP, Democrats ramp up candidacy challenges
The Tarrant County Republican and Democratic parties have filed dueling candidacy challenges ahead of the March primary elections.
The Tarrant County Democratic Party on Tuesday contested the ballot filings of 41 Republican judicial candidates and two state Republican House candidates in a letter to Tarrant County GOP Chair Tim Davis. The move comes just days after Davis challenged the candidacy of seven Democrats running for judicial offices in the primaries.
The goal is the same for both parties: Have the candidate in question declared ineligible for a place on the ballot.
Candidacy challenges during election season aren’t unusual, but the number of them in Tarrant County for the 2026 election is, said Jim Riddlesperger, a TCU political science professor.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, in terms of volume,” Riddlesperger said.
For both political parties, the alleged ballot filing issues are largely problems such as invalid signatures and missing or incorrect voter information on petitions that judicial candidates submit to secure a place on the ballot. Some also deal with candidate qualifications such as residency requirements or professional experience.
As the parties work to invalidate the bids of their opponents, they say the challenges are meant to uphold election laws.
“We follow the law in our party and expect our opponents to do so as well,” Davis said in a Jan. 8 Facebook post. “If a candidate can’t even follow the law when he’s running for office, how can we expect him to do so when he’s a judge?”
Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair Allison Campolo said in a prepared statement regarding the party’s challenges to GOP candidates:
“These aren’t minor errors. We’re talking about petitions that don’t meet basic legal requirements, even though it’s very clear about what is needed for a candidate to appear on the ballot. Our concerns are grounded in statute, documentation, process and the protection of Tarrant County citizens. Texas law is clear.”
A news release from the Democrats about their candidacy challenges referred to the situation as “Election filing chaos.”
Has more polarization led to more challenges?
Riddlesperger says the challenges are a reflection of “how ugly politics have gotten in this polarized era.”
Tarrant County is one of the largest counties in the state with a huge number of elected offices, said Keith Graddie, who is also a TCU political science professor.
“When you have a huge number of elected offices, there are more opportunities to challenge,” he said. “But 43 challenges – that is really something. That either speaks to the polarization, which I agree with, or the incompetences of the candidates, which I doubt is the case.”
Primary ballots have already been finalized, Campolo told the Star-Telegram, which means these challenges will likely affect whether candidates can appear on the general election ballots in November. The top primary vote-getters from each party advance to the general election.
She described the Republican Party as disputing “minute clerical errors,” a move she chalks up to GOP fears of losing on Nov. 3. She argues that the issues Democrats are flagging in Republican filings are bigger than the problems highlighted by Republicans.
“To his credit, he has done his homework and tried … to get the Democrats off the ballot,” Campolo said of Davis in an interview. “But really, my response is that it’s very clear that Republicans are extremely nervous about the Democratic challengers, and they’re just grasping at straws to get them off the ballot by any means necessary.”
Davis did not return emails requesting comment, but acknowledged the challenges in a Tuesday Facebook post. Davis said the party had received the challenges and is starting the review process.
He also took issue with the presentation of the challenge itself.
“From the first pass, it appears the Democrats were about as sloppy with their challenge as they were with their original filings,” Davis said. “Headers are misplaced, formatting errors and typos run throughout the document, and they use the wrong legal analysis.
“I’ll credit the Democrats in one area, though: it appears they just cut-and-paste portions of the original challenge that I filed. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Tarrant County Republicans are honored to note this is just another area where Democrats have shown they have no original ideas.”
More attention on contested filings
Candidacy challenges are common, but usually play out in the background, Campolo said.
“It’s usually very quiet,” she said.
Usually the review is limited to obvious errors, resulting in a couple candidates being rejected from the ballot, Campolo said. But this year, Davis’ challenge resulted in an influx of volunteers, allowing for a “deeper dive” into the Republican filings, she said.
At the end of the day, the reviews are “a political process we should all engage in,” she said.
“They should request our petition pages, and we should request theirs,” Campolo said. “It is a safe political process that allows us to have safe elections.”
