How the Texas Senate race in Fort Worth is a $5 million poker game | Opinion
The gamblers and the preachers have put down $5 million in opposing bets.
The winner will walk away holding 1/31st of an important political power in Texas, the state Senate.
Those are the stakes in the Texas Senate District 9 special election Nov. 4 in much of Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
The election matches up two Republicans from Southlake and a Democrat from Fort Worth.
One of the Republicans, former Southlake Mayor John Huffman, says he supports allowing the public to vote on limited gambling casinos in Texas.
The other Republican, religious campaigner and party activist Leigh Wambsganss, strongly opposes change.
Both are filling our mailboxes with wild claims, and this is only the beginning of multiple elections and runoffs. Both Huffman and Wambsganss have said they will continue the campaign in the March 2026 Republican Party primary.
Pray for the postal carriers in District 9.
This election will decide whether either Huffman, Wambsganss or the Democratic candidate, Fort Worth labor leader Taylor Rehmet, will meet in a January or February runoff. The winner will fill the Fort Worth seat as one of 31 senators, succeeding now-acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock.
Huffman’s campaign mailers are funded almost totally by an Austin-based PAC tied to Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson.
She’s trying to break through the stiffest border wall in Texas: the one that keeps casinos just outside the state line.
Wambsganss’ campaign and mailers are funded by different donors from the Republican MAGA church faction led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the 75-year-old evangelical Southern Baptist who stands steadfast against gambling in Texas.
Some of Wambsganss’ money also traces back to Tim Dunn, the Midland oil baron and Christian school founder described by Texas Monthly as “The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy.”
So, it’s Big Gaming against MAGA, God and Dan Patrick.
In Austin, they’re calling this election a proxy war between Adelson and Patrick’s allies, including some business leaders more politically aligned with Huffman but afraid of going against the all-powerful lieutenant governor.
“It’s happening under the radar,” reporter Scott Braddock wrote from the Austin-based Quorum Report newsletter, “and it’s possible Patrick could end up with a Republican senator who doesn’t just do what he’s told, unlike all the others.”
It’s still a surprise to see a $5 million off-cycle election. It may be a $7 million election when it’s all added up, $10 million or more after the runoff.
The spending is “off the charts,” political scientist Mark P. Jones wrote from Rice University.
The winner will serve until January 2027. He or she won’t even take a vote in the Senate unless there’s a special session.
At Southern Methodist University, political scientist Matthew Wilson called the funding “an extraordinary amount of money spent in a single state Senate election,” where party control isn’t in question and where the term doesn’t include a legislative session.
“It is also remarkable given that Wambsganss and Huffman don’t really disagree on any substantive issue other than casino gambling,” he wrote by email.
Jones described the election as between the two wings of Texas Republicans, with Wambsganss representing “the ascendant MAGA wing” and Huffman the candidate of the “center-right pragmatic wing,” with Las Vegas Sands Corporation’s support.
The two top candidates Nov. 4 will advance to a runoff to be called by Gov. Greg Abbott, probably in January or February.
Expect another Tarrant County Commissioners’ Court debate over voting sites.
For this election, county officials tried to rig the voting to favor the Keller-Southlake vote, cutting Fort Worth back to only two early voting locations for the entire central city. Even suburban Republican county commissioners said that was going too far.
The runoff spending will be shocking, no matter whether it involves two Republicans or a Republican against Rehmet and the resurgent and energized Tarrant County Democrats.
“The political stakes are high, and the money is even higher,” political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus wrote from the University of Houston.
It’s expensive to introduce unknown suburban candidates and motivate voters in an off-year race.
“Both wings have to spend big to make their case,” Rottinghaus wrote. “The truth is that a few wealthy backers can make a huge difference.”
This is a high-stakes game.
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 10:39 AM.
