Two others are also vying to become the next Tarrant County Judge, challenging incumbent Tim O’Hare.

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Tarrant County Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons Saturday announced she’s running for Tarrant County Judge, challenging incumbent Tim O’Hare. 

Simmons has served on the commissioners court since 2022, and served as the Arlington NAACP President for more than 10 years before that. 

In announcing her campaign, Simmons touted her efforts to protect voting rights and push for reforms at the Tarrant County Jail. 

“Extremists are attacking our voting rights, weakening public services, and hoping we’ll stay quiet. We won’t,” she wrote in a post on social media announcing her campaign. 

Simmons and O’Hare have often clashed on the court on issues including taxes, oversight of the Tarrant County Jail and, most recently, on the county’s newly-redrawn electoral map. 

The commissioners approved the new map, which creates three districts with a Republican majority, in a 3-2 vote in June.

Simmons and her fellow commissioner Roderick Miles had alleged the redistricting efforts were “dangerous” and “racially motivated.” The new map also drew legal challenges from residents similarly alleging racial gerrymandering, but those have been dropped or dismissed, as KERA reports. 

O’Hare has denied those allegations, and said in a post on social media that the commissioners followed the law in approving the new maps.

“We followed the law. And Tarrant County will be the better for it,” O’Hare wrote in the post. 

O’Hare, in another post on social media following Simmons’ campaign announcement, alleged Simmons “turned the Commissioners Court into a stage for petulant tantrums and ideological extremism,” and touted his record on taxes and public safety.

“Simmons carries the same political ideology that Tarrant County has spent years keeping on the other side of the county line in Dallas. Judge O’Hare’s record couldn’t be clearer: he cut spending, reduced taxes, strengthened public safety, and delivered better results with less bureaucracy,” he wrote. 

Business owner Lydia Bean, a Democrat, and advocate Robert Buker, a Republican, are also vying to become the next Tarrant County Judge, as KERA first reported.Â