{"id":431679,"date":"2026-09-10T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431679\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:00:09","slug":"republicans-look-to-dallas-to-expand-their-reach-in-big-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431679\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans look to Dallas to expand their reach in big cities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About two dozen mayors met in Dallas this week with one mission: Make cities part of the Republican Party\u2019s priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eric Johnson founded the association after he changed parties three years ago, saying he wanted to grow conservative leadership in urban strongholds that tend to be dominated by Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, who is scheduled to speak Thursday at the two-day GOP rally in Dallas, pushes for conservative policies to address high costs and quality of life issues, including homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMayors are on the front lines of those issues every day,\u201d Johnson told\u00a0The Dallas Morning News.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson swapped parties five months after he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/politics\/2023\/09\/22\/dallas-mayor-eric-johnson-announces-he-is-switching-to-republican-party\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">won reelection in 2023<\/a>. His move made Dallas the most populous U.S. city led by a Republican.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Republican mayors, like Johnson, say there has never been a better time to grow an urban base. In 2024, urban cores across the country shifted to the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dallas County Democratic Party Chair\u00a0Kardal Coleman said Johnson\u2019s political switch didn\u2019t alter the city\u2019s political leanings. Dallas County has voted blue for over two decades, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County Party Chair Will O\u2019Neill said there\u2019s nothing partisan about fixing potholes, but you need money to do that and that requires a conservative budgeting and policymaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Republican Mayors Association could set up the machinery to help the GOP grow its power in blue cities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve recruited dozens and dozens of candidates over the years, and they want to hear that there\u2019s going to be some intellectual support, some financial support,\u201d said Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rector said the GOP often lacks the registered voters in larger cities to stay competitive but it could get there gradually by \u201cshowing the success of conservative principles and ideas that have been implemented in large cities that maybe have a Democrat there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About two dozen mayors met in Dallas this week with one mission: Make cities part of the Republican&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-431679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}