Political affiliation is important when it comes to any election that takes place in the U.S. It’s how people pick who they’d vote for, and how they determine a candidate’s goals and ideals.
Here in Dallas, positions in the city government tend to be nonpartisan, as is the case for the position of mayor.
Despite this technically being the case, a big announcement was made on Sept. 22 by Mayor Eric Johnson, who would be officially switching parties.
Johnson was elected in 2019, having spent over 10 years as a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives. It was a landslide vote, with 93% casting their votes in favor of him for the position of mayor.
Johnson represented strong ideals in his campaign such as “presenting a unified front for Dallas, and not falling prey to the factions that had become D.C. politics.” Johnson also sought to be an honest and ethical leader.
“I was disheartened to read recently another account of a Dallas city leader choosing bribes over serving our city’s interests. Dallas deserves better from its leaders – and it shouldn’t fall to our city’s residents to root out political corruption, he said.
He also referred to himself as a “crime-fighting champion”, seeking to improve morale, increase wages, and hire more officers in the Dallas Police Department. In doing so, John- son hoped to lower crime rates and make Dallas safer overall.
Johnson followed through with most of his promises during the last four years serving as mayor, but recently he has decided to make a big change.
Announced in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, Johnson told people that he would be making the switch to the Republican Party, making him the only Republican mayor of one of the 10 largest cities in the U.S.
“It is clear that the nation and its cities have reached a time for choosing, and the overwhelming majority of Americans who call our sites home deserve to have real choices,” he said. “American cities need Republicans, and Republicans need American cities.”
The Texas Democratic Party condemned the mayor for his actions, giving a statement of their own; “This announcement is neither surprising nor unwelcome,” Chair Gilberto Hinojosa and vice-chair Shay Wyrick-Cathey said. “The voters of Dallas deserved to know where he stood before he ran for reelection as mayor. He wasn’t honest with his constituents.”
After Johnson’s announcement, Attorney General Ken Paxton was one of the first to respond, creating a post on X that said, “Welcome, Mayor!”
Gov. Greg Abbott also gave a warm welcome to the now-GOP mayor on X, tweeting, “Texas is getting more red every day.”
Johnson plans to continue to work as mayor of Dallas and has expressed his intent to not let his partisanship affect his promises made to the people of Dallas.
He plans to be mayor until the end of his second and final term in 2027, when he will officially step down and seek other political opportunities.
