Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson’s campaign biography once described him as a “lifelong Democrat.” Now, on Thursday evening, he is expected to share the stage with President Donald Trump at the Republican’s mid-term convention in Dallas, building on his credentials as a Republican convert.
That’s a very different place from where he started.
Johnson ran as a Democrat when he represented Texas House District 100 in southern Dallas and part of Mesquite — which has a predominately Latino and Black population — from 2010 to 2019.
When Dallas County Republicans tried to remove more than 80 Democrats from the ballot in 2018 — including Johnson — he claimed that the Republican Party seemed to be doing “everything in its power to show minority voters that it has little regard for them at the national, state and now local level.”
He even got an endorsement from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren during his reelection campaign that same year.
But after he was elected to his second term as mayor in May 2023, his political career took a very different turn.
A little less than five months later, he announced his decision to switch parties — in a city that consistently voted Democratic in the last three presidential elections.
He wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal after his political switch that mayors and other local officials have “failed to make public safety a priority or to exercise fiscal restraint.” Most of those local leaders, Johnson wrote, were Democrats “who view cities as laboratories for liberalism rather than as havens for opportunity and free enterprise.”
Johnson also formed the Republican Mayors Association and endorsed President Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Where does he goes from here? Less clear.
He’s term-limited from running for mayor again. Both Republicans and Democrats have speculated that he may run for a state or national office after he finishes his term as mayor — or may even end up serving in some capacity within the Trump Administration.
‘Selfish and cynical’
Municipal roles in Texas, including mayor, are officially nonpartisan.
While Johnson found new political friends in the Republican Party, the reaction from former Democratic colleagues and others on the Dallas City Council was vocal and blunt.
“He knowingly portrayed himself as a lifelong Democratic voter and representative throughout his re-election campaign for mayor,” Dallas County Democrats said in a statement released after Johnson switched parties. “Now, less than four months after being re-elected to his final term in office, he has declared that he will govern the city as a Republican.”
Dallas County Democrats wrote they had we "heard from scores of angry voters who feel deceived and blindsided by the mayor’s announcement" and described Johnson's decision as a “selfish and cynical strategy to get his next job at the expense of his current job, the one Dallas voters elected him to do."
Dallas City Council Member Adam Bazaldua told The Texas Tribune in September 2023 he didn’t believe that Johnson’s decision set the tone for “where the priorities are.”
“In fact, that’s why I believe it would have been nice for voters to have the opportunity of knowing that party affiliation prior to going to the ballot box in May,” Bazaldua said.
After Johnson announced he was changing parties, District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon told KERA that party affiliation doesn’t play a role in how she represents her constituents.
"I ran for municipal office because partisan politics should not play a motivating role in decisions affecting our residents. My work at Dallas City Hall most directly impacts the lives of everyday residents, and I show up every day to do the job they elected me to do,” Blackmon said.
At least one prominent local Democrat said he was not surprised by Johnson’s decision.
“Eric Johnson has not participated with the Dallas County Democratic Party in a number of years,” Democratic County Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman told KERA. “We’ve not had any participation or communication with the mayor. We believe this is just a self-serving, self-seeking agenda the mayor is on.”
The ‘lifelong’ Democrat
But for a very long time, Johnson had identified as a Democrat.
The Dallas native worked for a Democratic state representative after he graduated from Harvard and before he went on to get a law degree.
“Eric is a lifelong Democrat and has been active in the Democratic Party for several years,” a 2009 biography on his campaign website stated. “He has served as a Democratic precinct chair and has also been a financial supporter of the Dallas County Democratic Party, Dallas County Young Democrats, Texas Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee.”
The biography went on to say that Johnson and his wife at that time launched a PAC in 2008 “to support progressive candidates and causes throughout Texas. He served as an at-large delegate for President Barack Obama at the Texas Democratic State Convention and also as an Obama precinct captain during the 2008 Democratic primary.
Johnson first won the Texas House of Representatives District 100 seat in 2010 after he defeated the incumbent in the Democratic primary. The district is centered in the city of Dallas. He was reelected four times running as a Democrat, and, according to Ballotpedia, never faced a Republican challenger in the general elections.
In 2018, the Dallas County Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking to remove more than 80 Democratic candidates from the general election ballot that year — including Johnson. It alleged that the chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party at the time had not signed the candidate applications before submitting them to the Texas Secretary of State’s office, claiming that was required to certify them for election.
“This frivolous lawsuit was a thinly veiled attempt by the Dallas County Republican Party to take away the ability of minority voters in Dallas County to elect the candidates of their choice,” then-State Rep. Eric Johnson said in a statement. “The Republican Party seems to be doing everything in its power to show minority voters that it has little regard for them at the national, state, and now local level.”
State District Judge Eric Moyé dismissed the lawsuit.
The Dallas Morning News reported that the same year, Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), endorsed Johnson.
“This Nov. 6 is the most important midterm election of our lives, and we need every voice across Texas to be heard,” The News reported she said in a video on Twitter (now X). “Let’s get to work re-electing Eric Johnson and Texas Democrats.”
Johnson reportedly urged Texans to vote a straight-Democrat ticket.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said Johnson had to be a Democrat to win the elections for his House seat. That reputation followed him when he ran for mayor in 2019.
“Dallas is now a Democrat city and so he was a Democrat running in a nonpartisan election, but everybody knew that he had been a Democrat,” Jillson said. “And he remained a Democrat until after his re-election.”
City hall tenure
The race for Dallas mayor attracted a crowded field in 2019. Because none of the candidates got more than 50 percent of the vote, Johnson and Scott Griggs, an attorney and former council member — the two candidates with the most — faced each other in a runoff. In that election, Johnson prevailed with 55.6% of the vote.
Johnson ran virtually unopposed in 2023, getting about 98.7% of the vote. Not long after he switched to the Republican Party.
After switching parties, Johnson formed the Republican Mayors Association and has kept a “vaguely” Republican position on some issues in Dallas, Jillson said.
“But he doesn't sort of organize the council in order to achieve that goal, if that is in fact his goal,” Jillson said. “He'll write it in his newsletter or make a speech about it, but then there doesn't seem to be a lot of follow through.”
Johnson is on his last term as Dallas mayor. Jillson says he might not have a place as an elected official, but there are other opportunities for him like as an appointed official in the Republican administration or as a federal judge.
Whatever his political future holds, Johnson has shared his hope for the Republican party.
“I look forward to welcoming my fellow Republicans from across the United States to Dallas this September,” Johnson said in a statement earlier this year. “As Chairman of the Republican Mayors Association, I’m confident that this unprecedented convention will energize our party, strengthen the conservative movement, and help build momentum for a successful 2026 election.”
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