Recognizing that local elections matter now more than ever, the Republican Party of Texas says it’s “doubling down” on helping conservatives win key city and school board elections that are nominally nonpartisan.
“Unfortunately, too many Texans believe because they live in a Republican state, radical liberal policies will never become law,” RPT Chairman Matt Rinaldi wrote in an email last week announcing the new local initiative.
“However, the hard truth is that many times liberal policies do pass, and often at the City and School board level without anyone paying attention,” he added.
In just the past year, Texans have been shocked to see liberal local officials defend everything from sexually explicit books in public school libraries to radical policies dividing people by race to oppressive COVID mandates.
Examples like these are why the Republican Party of Texas is doubling down on our commitment to local races by announcing the creation of a Local Government Committee to assist county parties in electing conservative candidates in often-overlooked nonpartisan school board and municipal elections.
City and school district candidates aren’t identified by political party on the ballot, but their actions once in office reflect their political ideologies.
Texas Democrats have been actively targeting local races since 2015, when the party launched Project LIFT (Local Investment in the Future of Texas). The program allocates state party resources to recruit, train, and elect Democrats to city councils and school boards.
For the past few election cycles, Texas Republicans have begun responding.
Earlier this year, the Collin County Republican Party endorsed more than two dozen local candidates on the May ballot.
“There is no such thing as a nonpartisan election,” McKinney businessman and conservative leader Derek Baker told Texas Scorecard.
With both major parties acknowledging that fact, Texas voters can expect local elections to become even more openly partisan.
