Denton County Commissioner Dianne Edmondson is no stranger to a difficult campaign challenge.
Edmondson’s first campaign saw her facing a 2018 Republican primary against three other opponents, including a former commissioner, for the Precinct 4 seat. Then-Commissioner Andy Eads had stepped aside to seek the county judge seat.
Edmondson, a self-described “constitutional conservative,” found herself in a runoff against the former commissioner, Jim Carter, only to win by a small margin but later defeat Democratic challenger, Bryan Webb, by more than 16,700 votes in the November 2018 general election.
The November win was no surprise, given Denton County’s historic status as a Republican stronghold and Edmondson’s 14-year tenure leading the Denton County Republican Party.
Endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott in her bid for a third term, Edmondson now finds herself facing three Republican opponents in the March 3 primary: Gerard Hudspeth, the current Denton mayor; Valerie Roehrs, a former corporate executive turned rancher; and David Wylie, a Denton County GOP precinct chair, election judge and committee member of the state Republican Party.
Early voting continues through Friday for the March 3 primary.
The primary winner will face the Democratic nominee, Stephanie Draper, in the Nov. 3 general election.
“Well, honestly, there were some things that I have started and need to get finished,” Edmondson told the Denton Record-Chronicle last week. “I learned early on you need three votes, and one of those votes has to be passionate about what is being passed; or it just dies.”
Those things include the county fire plan, which Edmondson said protects the unincorporated areas of the county, as well as the sheriff’s desire to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which, she said, “the court needs to be supportive of that and make sure to get it done.”
Other campaign priorities involve championing well-funded law enforcement, safer roads, low taxes and transparent communication with constituents.
Edmondson pointed out that while her opponents are nice people, they are all saying the same thing: “This is what I want to do and hope to do.”
“I’ll tell you this is what I have done and will continue to do,” Edmondson said. “I have a proven track record. It’s not just hopes and dreams and wishes.”
Edmondson’s proven track record also extends to her campaign finances. Since 2018, Edmondson has accepted more than $144,000 in contributions from developers, development PACs and those associated with developers with projects in the county, according to campaign finance reports.
Kirk Wilson, a former Denton County judge, from developer consulting firm T. Wilson & Associates has donated $23,500 to Edmondson’s campaign fund since 2018. Wilson’s associate Roy Magno, the former mayor of Aubrey, has contributed $9,800 since last year.
Terrance Jobe, CEO of Alluvium Development in Midlothian, has donated $35,000 since 2024, while Tommy Cansler, owner of TCCI Land Development in Colleyville, recently contributed $30,000.
Both Wilson and Magno have also appeared in Hudspeth’s campaign reports for his mayoral runs. Neither appear in Hudspeth’s latest campaign report from Monday — though Cansler does with a $30,000 contribution.
Edmondson’s newest campaign report shows $36,096 in contributions, $111,173 in expenditures and $83,761 in contributions maintained as of the last day of the filing period.
Wylie didn’t show any large donations from developers in his campaign finance reports, and Roehrs had not filed her eight-day campaign report as of Tuesday afternoon.
Edmondson said Tuesday that she has been working with developers as part of Denton County’s fire protection plan because unincorporated areas of the county are being developed and need police and fire protection for their developments.
“I find on the whole, developers are community-oriented and offer nice developments with schools and fire departments, and the way to get those things is to work together and not throw rocks at each other,” Edmondson said.
Born in San Antonio, Edmondson grew up in Oklahoma, where her father was working. She attended Northeast High School in Oklahoma City, followed by Oklahoma State University, where she studied English and journalism from 1959 to 1962.
In the early 1980s, Edmondson founded a technical recruiting and contract consulting firm with her husband, Bob Edmondson, that she would lead until she retired in 2006. They have three children, one of whom is deceased, and seven grandchildren. They live in Denton’s Robson Ranch and are active at New Life Church.
After moving to Denton County in 1988, Edmondson first got involved in politics. She became a delegate to the Republican state convention. She has also been a delegate or an alternate at three national GOP conventions and was tapped by the state GOP and the Republican County Chair Association to mentor and train other GOP county chairs.
Edmondson served as president of the Denton Republican Women’s Club. She has been involved in the Republican National Coalition for Life, the Texas Republican County Chair Association and the Texas Federation of Republican Women.
In 2018, when Edmondson faced Carter in the Republican primary runoff for the Precinct 4 seat, she got a taste of her first controversy a few months later over campaign filings leading up to the November general election.
A month after she was elected in late 2018, Edmondson faced another controversy when she hired a political consultant — whom the Record-Chronicle reported had been involved in a political scheme in 2008 — as her chief administrator.
Two years later, Edmondson would help pass the county’s first homestead exemption for homeowners and create a property tax cap for homestead homeowners 65 years or older and credited Denton ISD and the city for passing tax breaks.
“I was able to convince my fellow commissioners to enact this tax cap, which was shortly followed by a first-time ever homestead exemption, which I also championed,” Edmondson told The Dallas Morning News in a 2022 voting guide.
Edmondson only faced one Republican challenger in the spring 2022 primaries: Michael Armstrong, a minister and small business owner from the Lantana area. She defeated him by nearly 2,800 votes. She did not face a Democrat in the general election.
In a February 2022 Record-Chronicle report, Armstrong said the most pressing issue facing Precinct 4 was the property tax rate.
“There was a freeze last year on seniors and that’s great, and that was needed, but the rest of us, they raised our property taxes again and we’re all being priced out of our homes,” Armstrong said in 2022. “I mean, renters, owners — everything’s going through the roof because our property values are going through the roof.”
Nearly four years later, high property taxes are still an issue, one that Edmondson and her opponents — Hudspeth and Wylie — told Community Impact in January they would address if elected in March and again in November.
This week, Hudspeth raised questions about Edmondson, who mentioned Hudspeth was an opponent at a county commissioners meeting in December. The commissioners were about to vote on a $755,000 contract that Hudspeth was representing from Freeit Data Solutions, where he works as the state and local government business leader.
Hudspeth said that people in leadership are the “sum of their professional experience” in a Feb. 18 email to the Record-Chronicle.
“There is no connection between my professional work and the County Commission because I am not a commissioner,” Hudspeth wrote. “Furthermore, as Mayor of Denton, I do not work for any Denton-based business that does business with the city. I have already laid out a plan for after the election that goes well beyond the legal minimum to ensure that my service to the county remains my sole priority.”
In an email to the Record-Chronicle, Hudspeth questioned Edmondson’s mentioning of his name and his candidacy while using county resources and equipment at the Commissioners Court meeting in December.
Texas election law prevents officials from using court meetings for political campaigning or promoting a candidacy. An official can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor.
Edmondson said she had only recently discovered that Hudspeth was the Freeit Data representative behind the $8.3 million in contracts that they had been approving.
“Frankly, I don’t have a problem mentioning it when he’s doing something a little bit shady and unethical,” Edmondson said.
In June, Edmondson joined Gov. Abbott and other Republican officials, including Hudspeth, at the Robson Ranch Clubhouse, where the governor signed the property tax relief bills into law. Now the homestead exemption for older Texans is $200,000, Abbott said in a June 16 news release.
“This session, we also spent $50 billion on property tax release,” Abbott said in the release. “This is truly unprecedented — no state in American history has devoted such a large percentage of their budget to tax relief.”
Edmondson said Abbott liked what the commissioners were doing with property taxes in Denton County for those age 65 and older. She called it “something he approved of.”
“They don’t have to worry about losing their homes because of their property taxes,” Edmondson said.
CHRISTIAN McPHATE can be reached at 940-220-4299 and cmcphate@dentonrc.com.
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