Editor’s note: This story will be updated with the latest election results after polls close at 7 p.m.
Three Democrats are on the primary ballot vying for their party’s nomination to represent the northwest area of Tarrant County on the commissioners court in November.
The Democratic ballot sees Perla Bojorquez, an educator and community organizer; Nydia Cardenas, a leadership coach and grassroots activist; and Cedric Kanyinda, who owns a consulting business.
The winner of the race will face Republican incumbent Manny Ramirez, who was elected in 2022 and is running unopposed for the GOP nomination. Precinct 4 covers Fort Worth’s northside up through Lake Worth, Saginaw and Azle.
While the three Democrats differ slightly in priorities, they broadly support investing in the county’s infrastructure and re-funding county-run programs that were trimmed down or eliminated by the commissioners court’s Republican majority.
Bojorquez and Cardenas spoke respectfully of one another and said they’re running a friendly primary race. Neither has met Kanyinda.
Read the three candidates’ responses to the Fort Worth Report’s survey at our election guide.
Precinct 4 historically votes red, with Ramirez winning the seat by about 18 percentage points in 2022. Democrats hope they can flip the seat by mobilizing more voters, particularly in Hispanic and Latino communities, and carrying forward momentum from Taylor Rehmet’s Texas Senate upset win on Jan. 31 in Senate District 9, which covers much of north and west Tarrant County and overlaps with Precinct 4.
Voters can find who represents them and who will be on the ballot at vote411.org, and they can check their registration status on the Texas Secretary of State’s website.
Ramirez, who reported having $244,688 in cash on hand in the most recent campaign finance reports, said he’s looking forward to running in November. He said he “welcome(s) anybody who wants to introduce ideas into a campaign.”
At the Fort Worth Report’s Feb. 12 Democratic Primary Election forum, Bojorquez and Cardenas made their case for why Democratic voters should trust them to flip the seat in November. Kanyinda was unable to attend the forum.
Cardenas, a Fort Worth native, said her deep connections to Tarrant County’s communities will help mobilize and win over enough voters to flip the seat. She also noted her ability to outraise her opponent and argued that fundraising will be necessary in the lead-up to November.
“Taylor Rehmet showed us that we don’t have to outraise, but we have to at least have enough money to really combat,” she said.
Bojorquez, who moved to Fort Worth eight years ago, said she’s “already been doing the work” to mobilize the Democratic vote and will continue. She specifically pointed out her work with the Indivisible 12 group, which she co-founded. The group, while nonpartisan, has been a primary organizer of Fort Worth protests against President Donald Trump, including two No Kings protests.
“I’ve been knocking doors since September — I haven’t stopped,” she said. “It started for Taylor’s campaign, I kept doing it for my campaign.”
Bojorquez feels she is qualified to serve as commissioner partly because of her background as a paralegal, which she said has prepared her to do legal research and contract reviews on court agenda items.
“If anything, I want to protect Tarrant County from getting sued in these lawsuits because of the gerrymandering and jail deaths,” she told the Report in early February.
Cardenas argued that her career in leadership coaching and education in mechanical engineering honed her critical thinking skills. She is backed by the 817 Podcast — a progressive grassroots organization focused on Tarrant County — and See It Name It Fight It, a local organization formed to understand and fight “the ideology of Christian nationalism.”
“A year ago, I started attending commissioners court meetings and seeing absolutely the decision-making that does not lead to good decisions, that doesn’t follow good research practices around decision-making,” Cardenas said at the Report’s forum.
Kanyinda, who ran against Ramirez in 2022, said in the Report’s candidate survey that his ability to mobilize voters in the past has proven that he can build a coalition strong enough to win in November. Four years ago, Kanyinda got about 53,100 votes to Ramirez’s nearly 76,800, according to Tarrant County’s elections office.
Changing the court’s culture is also top of mind for the candidates, after a year of high-profile, Republican-led changes to Tarrant County, including redistricting precinct maps to better favor the GOP in Precinct 2; cutting voting locations; limiting how many times residents can address commissioners during meetings; and reducing meetings to once a month.
These decisions and others have led to routine party-line votes and arguments flaring up across the dais.
The three Democratic primary candidates all said they want to change the court’s culture, but their priorities differ.
Kanyinda said he wants to focus on shared goals between commissioners — “safe roads, fiscal responsibility, quality services” — rather than partisan differences. He mentioned O’Hare’s recent cutting of Democratic commissioners’ office budgets and staff as a practice of cross-court “retaliation” that he’ll push back against.
Cardenas also mentioned O’Hare cutting Democratic commissioners’ budgets as a catalyst to her candidacy. She said she’s watched the court’s Republicans become increasingly divisive over “culture war topics” and partisan issues, and she wants to refocus the court on “the actual functioning of the government.”
Bojorquez said she wants to push back on future partisan-line decisions, specifically with the goal of reducing how much the county is spending to defend lawsuits.
Improving northwest Tarrant County’s infrastructure, especially roadways, is another shared priority of the candidates. The county is responsible for constructing, maintaining and repairing roads, particularly in unincorporated areas that lie outside of city limits.
As Fort Worth’s population boom ripples into surrounding cities and unincorporated areas, new subdivisions, schools and stores are quickly filling the once-sprawling ranchland. Increased traffic can now create hourlong logjams like those along Bonds Ranch Road.
“I’m running because my family’s future, like every family’s future in Precinct 4, depends on having a commissioner who fixes roads, manages taxpayer dollars responsibly, works collaboratively across party lines, and actually delivers results,” Kanyinda said.
All three candidates mentioned that more accountability and transparency are needed in the Tarrant County jail, which has undergone scrutiny for having more than 70 in-custody deaths since 2017.
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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