Tami Brown-Rodriquez, left, is sworn in as Dallas County Republican Party Chair by Texas State Sen. Bob Hall on Monday May 4, 2026.
Tracey McManus
Texas Republican Party chair Abraham George skipped a meeting in Austin to get to a Fair Park church Tuesday before nearly 200 Dallas County GOP members elected their next leader.
Voters don’t care about internal party politics when gas prices are $4 a gallon, George told the crowd in light of last month’s resignation of Dallas County Republican Party Chair Allen West.
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He warned 2026 “is going to be one of the hardest cycles for Republicans in Texas,” citing perceived threats from Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico and apathy from conservatives.
“Dallas County still matters for the Republican Party and its election cycles,” George said, despite it being a blue island in a red state. His message set a tone for the next chapter of the local minority party dealing with a decade of inconsistent leadership and recent fallout from its push for precinct-based voting that ended with mass voter confusion and ongoing debate.
After two rounds of voting Tuesday, the Dallas County Republican Party narrowly elected Tami Brown-Rodriquez as chair for the next six weeks to finish the term vacated by West. She urged unity and urgency but signaled a shift in priorities from West, whom she served as vice chair.
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“My leadership style is more of a collaborative effort because without good, opposing ideas, great ideas never happen,” said Brown-Rodriquez, who leads an anti-human trafficking nonprofit and ran unsuccessfully in 2019 for the Dallas City Council.
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West resigned last month amid party backlash after he unilaterally scrapped a plan for precinct-based voting in the May 26 runoff.
Last year, the party’s executive committee voted to use precinct-based voting on the 2026 primary and runoff election days – a decision that, under Texas law, also blocked Democrats from using the countywide system where residents can cast a ballot at any vote center.
After thousands of confused voters were turned away at the polls March 3, and redirected to neighborhood precincts, West said he amended the party’s contract with the county to return to the vote-anywhere system to avoid potential litigation.
Precinct chair Barry Wernick has led a so-far unsuccessful effort to petition the courts to force a return to the precinct-based system, saying West’s decision wasn’t valid. Wernick and Brown-Rodriquez have been pushing Dallas County Elections Administrator Paul Adams for a meeting to discuss runoff preparations, emails show.
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Adams has said he is moving forward with West’s amendment for countywide voting and there isn’t time to make any more changes before the runoff. The five candidates nominated for Republican chair on Tuesday all promised to strengthen the party’s base in Dallas County but did not mention runoff dynamics.
The 186 precinct chairs wrote their choices anonymously on paper and tossed them into a bucket to be counted. After no candidate earned 50%, Brown-Rodriquez and former congressional candidate Monty Montanez headed to a runoff round.
Brown-Rodriquez won 94-88 after three precinct chairs left and one abstained.
She promised to run the party like a business, calling for the creation of a monthly budget, stronger fundraising and better organization.
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“We have to be able to lay down our defenses … and show that we are lockstep, arm in arm,” Brown-Rodriquez said. “We really need to shift the culture to ensure that together we can get this done and done well.”
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Before his resignation, West had been reelected to a second term to begin in June.
The party will have to meet again to elect a chair to serve in his place for the two-year term.
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As of Monday, Brown-Rodriquez is the eighth Dallas County GOP chair in the past decade.