Party Chairs Reflect on a Night of Turnover in Dallas County
U.S. Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke’s near miss might be grabbing the national headlines, but Dallas County’s Democratic Party is in high spirits on Wednesday. The party helped young Democrat Colin Allred unseat long-running Republican Congressman Pete Sessions, saw wins in key state senate races, and ushered in a run of Democrats within the judicial system that includes a return to a blue district attorney.
“The blue wave was definitely here,” declared the party’s county chair, Carol Donovan. “We swept practically every race we had.”
It was a night of upsets. Allred, an attorney and former NFL player, knocked off Sessions, a name that’s become synonymous with North Texas politics, whose run in Congress dated back to 1997. “You believed in us when all the pundits didn’t,” Allred told his watch party at Dallas’ Magnolia Hotel Park Cities.
In a race we noted could be key for Democrats, Julie Johnson (D) knocked of D-115 incumbent Matt Rinaldi (R) by a sizable 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent margin. And, in one that Dallas County Republican Chair Missy Shorey singled out as one of the biggest surprises, Ana-Maria Ramos (D) took the seat from D-102’s Linda Koop (R), who Shorey called “an outstanding representative.” Those suburban districts span Irving, Addison, and Richardson. Overall, five seats in the Texas house turned blue among 11 flips across the state.
Read more: https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2018/11/party-chairs-reflect-on-a-night-of-turnover-in-dallas-county/?ref=mpw