Texas Republicans win key mayor races, dashing Democrats hopes again on changing demographics, wins

Texas Republicans this past weekend swept key mayoral races across the state, a setback for Democrats who expected changing demographics, especially in the state’s larger urban centers, would continue to help them win the conservative-leaning state.

The biggest setback for Democrats was likely in the border town of McAllen, where roughly 85% of the 150,000 residents are Hispanics, and Republicans for the first time got a candidate elected as mayor, according to the National Review. 

Other cities with strong Hispanic populations also elected Republicans to replace retiring mayors.

In Fort Worth, the country’s 12th largest city, and where only a third of its 1 million people are white, Republican Mattie Parker, 37, easily defeated Democrat Deborah Peoples to become the youngest mayor of a major Texas city.

"We've never had a race that was this partisan, Kenneth Barr, the former Democratic mayor of Fort Worth, told Politico. "This particular election has moved as far in the partisan direction as any we’ve ever had."

Other Texas cities in which Republican won were Arlington, which borders Fort Worth in which just 39 percent of the population is white. Arlington voters , and elected GOP candidate Jim Ross, a former Arlington police officer who was endorsed by several police associations who liked his anti-crime platform, the National Review also reports.