In a Fort Worth election with everything but winners, Betsy Price’s team celebrates
All this election had was 23 candidates in one race, a convicted felon, an obnoxious ex-wrestler from Nevada and a last-minute smear campaign accusing a front-runner of murder.
What it didn’t have was a winner. At least, not many.
Runoffs will decide the next congressman or congresswoman from Arlington, the next mayors of Fort Worth and Arlington and six more seats on the Fort Worth and Arlington city council and county college board.
The clear winner Saturday night wasn’t even on the ballot.
Mayor Betsy Price won twice. She helped lift her former chief of staff, Mattie Parker, into a June 5 runoff trailing first-place Deborah Peoples but with at least an even chance to become the first millennial mayor of any city with nearly 1 million people.
Then, in an outright victory, two Price allies took control of the Panther Island project rechanneling the Trinity River. They said goodbye to ousted Tarrant Regional Water District board President Jack Stevens as the board majority shifted away from U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s control.
“I’m excited about this,” Price said in an understatement Saturday as Parker’s watch party at Lola’s Trailer Park began taking on a Billy-Bob’s-on-New-Year’s-Eve party vibe.
Every person passing the 10th-year mayor grabbed her, hugged her or twirled her as Parker welcomed well-wishers nearby.
“Most people agree the river project needs new ideas,” she said.
She praised Parker but looked down and shook her head sadly at the mention of Councilman Brian Byrd.
“I was very unhappy with Brian,” Price said.
Byrd, the early front-runner, was only drawing about 15% of the the vote for his vague campaign against unnamed “powerful insiders” downtown.
“I was very disgusted that he talked about Mattie and ‘corruption,’ “ Price said. “We usually don’t do that in Fort Worth.”
Parker said making the runoff in the face of Byrd’s attacks was “vindication.”
“That’s not who he really is,” she said, attributing the mailers to campaign staff.
“I just think we ran really different campaigns,” she said. “ ... We tried to be positive and that resonated with people.”
Peoples and Parker now face another month of forums — they’ve already done 15, mostly on Zoom — before early voting starts May 24.
“I like her,” Parker said. “We’ll both be working to get our voters back to the polls.”
(Peoples, more experienced at politics, welcomed friends at home Saturday with less hoopla.)
Price called Peoples, a former AT&T executive and currently the county Democratic chairwoman, “energetic and enthusiastic. She really works hard. She’s just a little more partisan than I’d like.”
Other Democrats did not do as well as Peoples. With suburban voters posting a heavy Republican turnout in what amounted to the first midterm election of President Joe Biden’s term, Fort Worth Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez finished third in the District 6 race and the party was completely locked out of an all-Republican runoff.
Late-surging Fort Worth Democrat Shawn Lassiter put on a ferocious effort and won boxes in Mansfield and southeast Tarrant County. But Sanchez’s campaign was hurt more by sluggish turnout in Democratic boxes districtwide.
The congressional race and giant local ballot gave the lawn of the Mansfield subcourthouse a flea market atmosphere Saturday, with candidates lined up along the walkway in tents while other candidates shouted over portable PA systems about their federal, county, city or school board campaigns.
“I have never seen as many signs, candidate tents — people here are putting on a wonderful show of democracy,” political consultant Tyler Norris said.
“But it’s a lot.”
The 23-candidate field included former pro wrestler Dan Rodimer, who moved to Mansfield days before the candidate filing deadline.
The election was rocked late by an bizarre, unidentified robocall blaming Arlington Republican Susan Wright for her late congressman husband’ Ron Wright’s death from COVID-19.
But Wright held her strong lead and will face Waxahachie Republican state Rep. Jake Ellzey in a midsummer runoff.
Rodimer finished with less than 3%.
This story was originally published May 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM.
