With Fort Worth City Council seats up for election next year, details are beginning to emerge about which candidates are considering public office and who is funding their campaigns.
None of the 11 sitting council members have publicly announced whether they plan to seek reelection. However, nine of them filed disclosures last week detailing their campaign finances, reporting more than $200,000 in spending among them so far this year as they gear up for the May 2027 election.
Since January, nine council members have collectively raked in about $417,000 in campaign donations, with Macy Hill, Michael Crain, Chris Jamieson and Deborah Peoples leading in fundraising.
Of those who filed disclosures, Mayor Mattie Parker raised the least money this year, $1,000, but spent the most, roughly $73,000. Her campaign war chest held about $846,000 in January — her spending this year brings it down to about $773,000.
All Fort Worth City Council seats appear on the ballot at the same time in May of odd-numbered years. The filing period for candidates to apply to be on the May 1, 2027, ballot is from Jan. 13 to Feb. 12.
Under state law, candidates for municipal office, including those seeking reelection, must file disclosures with the city secretary’s office detailing their campaign donors and how they spend cash contributions. Campaign finance reports for current officeholders were due July 15.
Based on available disclosures, Crain enters campaign season with the most cash on hand with more than $800,000. The next largest campaign coffer, after Parker’s, belongs to Hill, who has about $400,000.
Parker’s largest campaign expense was $35,290 paid in January to Austin-based consulting firm Perception Insights for survey research. Much of her other spending was on advertising and campaign events.
The one cash donation to Parker’s campaign this year came in April from Coley Kellogg, vice president of real estate development company Trammell Crow.
Hill’s campaign raised the most funds, with $184,850 reported this year. Her largest individual donor was the National Cutting Horse Association’s political action committee, which gave $10,000 in June. Several other PACs contributed thousands each to Hill’s campaign, including the Accountable Government Fund, funded by prominent Fort Worth businessman Ed Bass and his wife; the Fort Worth firefighters union; and For The Children, a PAC that has supported the rise of charter schools with funding from Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.
The majority of Hill’s campaign donors gave more than $1,000 each. She received $5,000 contributions from several influential Fort Worth businesspeople, such as Mike Berry, president of the commercial real estate developer Hillwood; Dee Kelly, an attorney and partner at Fort Worth law firm Kelly Hart & Hallman; John Goff, an investor and CEO of Crescent Real Estate; and John Kleinheinz, CEO of investment firm Kleinheinz Capital Partners.
Hill’s campaign, the second-highest spender after Parker’s, reported spending about $51,000, primarily for consulting services.
Crain was the council’s third-highest spender and third-highest fundraiser. He raised $166,495 and spent about $34,000.
The largest contribution to Crain’s campaign this year was from Gary Blake, CEO of Fort Worth-based Creative Solutions in Healthcare, according to Crain’s disclosures. Blake is the top cumulative individual donor to Fort Worth City Council members’ campaigns over the past five years and gave Crain $25,000 in May.
Crain’s PAC contributors include Fort Worth’s police and fire unions, For The Children and the Fort Worth-based civil engineering company Pape-Dawson Engineers.
Jamieson ranked fourth among the council in both campaign spending and fundraising two months after narrowly winning a special election to represent the council’s northernmost district. He raised $34,000 and reported spending almost $27,000 in his July 15 disclosure.
Jamieson’s largest contribution since taking office in mid-May was $10,000 from Coalition for the Fort, a PAC that says it focuses on helping elect “trustworthy, commonsense, fiscally responsible candidates.” He also received $5,000 from the Accountable Government Fund, the PAC funded by Bass. His largest campaign expense was nearly $17,000 paid to the McKinney-based consulting firm Catalyst Advisory Group.
Peoples raised a little under $20,000 with a quarter of the total contributed by the firefighters union. She spent $2,500 on consulting services, per her disclosure.
Council members Chris Nettles and Mia Hall did not have disclosures available as of July 20.
Of the other council members, none reported accepting more than $6,000 in cash this year.
Jeanette Martinez was the only other council member to spend more than $10,000, reporting nearly $13,000 in campaign expenses this year that included $1,900 donated to the National Mexican American College Education Fund and $2,000 to Amanda Arizola, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic primary nomination to run for a Tarrant County Commissioners Court seat in the November election.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
Disclosure: Hillwood is a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. Marianne Auld, a member of the Fort Worth Report board of directors, is the managing partner of Kelly Hart & Hallman. Kelly Hart has also been a financial supporter of the Report. News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
