The judge acts more like a county mayor. Democrat Deborah Peoples is facing Republican Tim O’Hare.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Tarrant County is a purple political battleground. It went blue for Beto and Biden but has a Republican in every countywide office.
The county’s race for judge highlights the fight to tilt the county blue or keep it red — and even divisions within the Republican Party.
WFAA spoke to both candidates in sit-down interviews to discuss their backgrounds and positions on key issues. This is the first in a series of stories focused on one of the most important races in the region.
“Most people don’t know what county judge is,” Republican candidate Tim O’Hare said. “They think you’re going to be in a robe with a gavel in front of a jury.”
O’Hare has said the title is so confusing, he hopes to ask the legislature to change it. Republican Glen Whitley currently serves as the county judge, which is more like a county mayor or administrator that also oversees emergency management, and is stepping down after 15 years.
“My mission is to create an environment where every resident in Tarrant County is allowed to thrive,” Democratic candidate Deborah Peoples said.
Peoples is a familiar name in Fort Worth after running for mayor twice and is a retired AT&T executive who says her focus is on creating high-skilled jobs and improving health care and education.
“We want great economic development that matters to Republicans, Democrats, any party you’re in, we want to have good infrastructure,” Peoples said.
O’Hare is an attorney and former mayor. He notes the $212,000 salary he’d receive as judge would be a pay cut and that his motives for running are on improving the county, not money. He lists his top priorities as property tax relief, cutting budgets through employee attrition and reducing crime.
“Regardless of what it will do for my reelection chances, regardless of what the media is going to say, regardless of what the cancel culture mob will say, I’m going to do what I think is right,” O’Hare said.
As mayor of Farmers Branch, he helped pass ordinances targeting undocumented immigrants, but they were found unconstitutional and cost the city millions in legal fees. He wants more immigration enforcement in Tarrant County and to continue a policy allowing the sheriff’s office to partner with immigration enforcement.
“When people say there’s a race element to it, it’s just people that are doing that race baiting thing that far left always plays that people aren’t buying anymore,” O’Hare said. “When you are someone who believes in law and order and someone who wants to remove criminal illegal aliens from your community, how is that related to race anything?”
O’Hare says Peoples is divisive and focused on race issues.
She, though, paints O’Hare as divisive and extreme, endorsed by former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, but not Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker or Republican Judge Glen Whitley.
Whitley called O’Hare divisive after he won the Republican primary over former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.
“He is playing with the Washington playbook on how to be divisive,” Peoples said. “I think people are tired of that and don’t want to hear that.”
O’Hare founded Southlake Families PAC to elect school board candidates and combat critical race theory, which K-12 schools say isn’t taught. His school board politics increased his name recognition in northeast Tarrant County, which helped him win the primary race.
Both candidates say if the other wins, the county will look and feel much different.
“Tarrant County is about freedom and Tarrant County is about America,” O’Hare said.
“I think that there are a lot of people who will be left out of the equation,” Peoples said. “It’s not just by race, by religion, it’s by sexuality is by income level.”
WFAA will continue to follow this race with an update on where O’Hare and Peoples stand on lower property taxes, deaths in the county jail, crime, John Peter Smith Hospital and more.