Redrawing Tarrant County: Why Republicans and Democrats are on edge | Opinion
They’re only lines on a map.
But to Republicans and Democrats in Tarrant County, they mean everything.
To both parties, the arcane redrawing of the county election map poses an existential crisis.
To Republicans, it’s about control.
If they don’t draw a map to ensure a three-vote Republican majority on Commissioners’ Court, then they risk losing control if Judge Tim O’Hare loses to a Democrat next year in an anti-MAGA backlash.
To Democrats, it’s about survival.
If they don’t at least raise enough of a fuss to get Fort Worth and Arlington voters stirred up over getting divided and losing power to Keller, Southlake and Haslet, then the Democratic Party will continue to struggle the way it has for 30 years.
Republicans ‘saving’ Tarrant County, America
To a national Republican Party looking at a much bigger map, the question is not fair representation for Fort Worth or Arlington.
It’s about “saving” Tarrant County, Texas and America.
National Republicans have described Tarrant County as like Pennsylvania — a purple battleground where Republicans must win or risk losing Texas elections and, in turn, the nation as they know it.
That is why national political figures like commentator Tucker Carlson and former White House strategist Steve Bannon come here to raise money to support the local Republican Party.
That is why President Donald Trump’s America First Policy Institute national think tank’s office is off South University Drive in Fort Worth.
That is why many pastors from other states have moved here to start new evangelical or charismatic churches. That is why international televangelist Prophet Lance Wallnau preaches the “Seven Mountains” message of world conservative Christian domination from Keller.
O’Hare vs. Democrats
Even O’Hare moved to Tarrant County from the Dallas area because it was red. He plans to keep it religious-conservative red.
As recently as May 21, days less than two weeks before the redistricting vote, O’Hare wrote on X.com:
“Democrats have become the party of illegal aliens, pedophiles and murderers, and communism. Doesn’t seem like a good recipe for electoral wins.”
Bannon tells his national audience: “As Tarrant County goes, so goes Texas, right? As Texas goes, so goes MAGA, and as MAGA goes, so goes the United States of America, and as the United States of America goes, so goes the world.”
So to both parties, Tarrant County is more than just a map.
It’s either a political treasure to be guarded defiantly under strict suburban Republican rule, or a chance for big-city Fort Worth and Arlington Democrats to get a toehold at the courthouse again for the first time in 30 years.
Democrats flip a few elections every cycle. Just never enough to win back control.
The Tarrant GOP is losing ground
Look at the list of Republican losses since O’Hare, a Southlake attorney, took over the county Republican Party in 2016 and went on to become county judge. The party:
▪ Lost the county to Beto O’Rourke in 2018 against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
▪ Lost the Fort Worth Texas Senate seat, making Republicans redraw it.
▪ Lost the Arlington county commissioner’s seat in 2018 for the first time since 1984.
▪ Lost the Mansfield county justice of the peace seat
▪ Lost the county to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020.
▪ Lost the Mansfield county constable seat.
▪ Lost a majority of the Fort Worth City Council for the first time since 2011. (City elections are nonpartisan, but both parties have been active in campaigns.)
▪ Lost the Arlington mayor’s seat.
▪ Lost the Euless seat in the Texas House.
▪ Lost the county to Colin Allred in 2024 against Cruz.
▪ Lost the Mansfield school board president and two trustees’ seats May 3.
▪ Lost two school board seats in the Keller district, which mostly serves Republican north Fort Worth.
▪ Lost a school board seat in heavily Republican Grapevine-Colleyville even though the incumbent spent more than $100,000.
▪ Lost all 11 May elections where candidates were backed by county party chairman Bo French and other GOP officials in the county’s three largest cities, Fort Worth, Arlington and Mansfield.
Republicans can’t change 0-11.
Only the map.
This story was originally published May 29, 2025 at 5:28 AM.
