Tarrant County GOP members on Saturday elected a new chairman to lead the party: Tim Davis, an attorney who has counseled the party and represented Keller ISD during the high-profile attempt to split the district in two earlier this year.
Davis was immediately sworn in as chair Nov. 22 after winning the most votes of four candidates. He replaces Bo French, who led the party since 2023 and resigned this month to campaign for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, the agency that oversees oil and gas regulation.
“I make that promise to you, I'll never give up, and I want you to make that promise to me and to each other and to our county that you'll never give up,” Davis told precinct chairs after the vote. “If we keep it — if I keep it to you, and you keep it to me — we'll have a better county tomorrow than we do today and the day after and the day after.”
During the election meeting, Davis pledged to keep Tarrant elections secure, advocate for the precinct chairs who lead the party’s political organizing and never stop fighting to keep the county red.
He takes over the party as candidates begin filing for a place on the March primary ballot ahead of November 2026 elections for state and national offices. He enters about two months before the runoff election for Texas Senate District 9, which will see Democrat Taylor Rehmet and Republican Leigh Wambsganss face off for the vacant seat.
“What we’re going to be doing is knocking every door we can until our knuckles bleed,” Davis said, emphasizing that the runoff’s outcome is dependent on voter turnout.
Instead of at the party’s office, the meeting was held on the east Fort Worth campus of Mercy Culture, a megachurch known for conservative political activity that includes training Christians to run for office.
GOP secretary Danna Trowbridge said the meeting was held at the church because the party’s headquarters in northwest Fort Worth where meetings are usually held didn’t have enough space. Mercy Culture congregants within the party offered the space free of charge, she said.
To win the election for party chair, one candidate had to win 50% of votes from precinct chairs, volunteers who run the party’s political activities and register people to vote. If no candidate wins 50%, the lowest vote-getter would be dropped from the race and precinct chairs would vote again. That process would repeat until one candidate secured 50% of votes.
Three other people were nominated for chair: Shellie Gardner and John O’Shea, who both ran against Fort Worth Congressman Craig Goldman in the 2024 election, and Marshall Hobbs, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Fort Worth City Council earlier this year. After Davis, O’Shea was the second highest vote-getter, followed by Gardner then Hobbs.
Davis did not initially win 50% of votes, but won the majority with 87 votes. Instead of casting another round of ballots, the other three candidates conceded the race to Davis in what they described as a show of unity among the party.
“We’re a family, and this is what we do,” Gardner told reporters after the vote. “We’re all going to pull together behind the winner.”
She, Hobbs and O’Shea decided to bow out of the race when they saw the numbers in support of Davis, Garder said. She committed to working collaboratively with Davis to move the party forward.
Davis felt “incredibly humbled” by the support, which he said showed the party’s unity.
“I’m just incredibly proud of our party today — not because they elected me but because of the unity we saw from all different parts of our party,” Davis said.
During his remarks before the vote, Davis told precinct chairs he would work to ensure election integrity.
“We will have fair elections in this county, and I will do everything I can to continue what Chairman French started us on down the path towards ensuring that our elections are a model for the rest of the world, the rest of this country, the rest of this state,” Davis said.
Davis lives in Southlake and works at the Fort Worth-based law firm Jackson Walker. In 2023, Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare appointed Davis to the JPS Health Network board of managers, saying then he trusted the attorney to identify inefficiencies at Tarrant County’s publicly funded hospital system.
Before resigning, French initiated a push for the GOP to hand-count ballots in the March primary election — a proposal that would force voters to cast ballots in their own precinct instead of at any polling location in the county. Some members of both the Republican and Democratic parties have criticized the plan, saying it would increase costs for running primary elections and make voting less accessible.
French was in attendance at the Saturday meeting but declined to comment to the Report.
Davis said he doesn’t know yet if he’ll continue French’s push for hand-counted ballots, but he is in favor of “any system that is secure, that is accurate.”
He declined to comment on scrutiny surrounding his employment with Keller ISD, citing attorney-client privilege.
A group of Fort Worth homeowners suing the school district allege that Davis was instrumental in developing a legal strategy in support of school board members’ proposal to split the district in two. His hiring for that role was never formally approved in a public meeting.
Tim Johnston, a precinct chair representing Fort Worth, said he cast his ballot in support of Davis because it’s helpful to have an attorney as party chair. He felt encouraged to see the majority support Davis as well, and hopes to see continued unity under his leadership.
“We can have our opinions and differences ... but at the end of the day, we rally behind our party and behind our candidate and make sure that we listen to each other,” Johnson said. “Address each issue, and then move forward.”
Mary Childs, a precinct chair representing North Richland Hills, said she voted for Davis because, of the four candidates, he was the one she was most familiar with. A precinct chair for 15 years, Childs has worked with Davis and found him reliable and communicative as he served as the party’s legal counsel, she said.
She said her one goal for Davis as chair is to maintain Tarrant County as a Republican stronghold, “taking it from purple to red.”
Davis takes the reins of the Republican party after a year marked by controversies surrounding his predecessor, French.
The former chairman built a reputation for posting incendiary comments on social media and refused to heed calls to resign from leaders in his own party. Earlier this year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and a number of Republican elected officials across Tarrant County called for French’s resignation after he posted a poll asking whether Jewish or Muslim people pose “a bigger threat to America.”
More recently, French faced scrutiny for targeting Euless Democrat Salman Bhojani, the first Muslim and South Asian elected to the Texas House, and called for his denaturalization and deportation.
Davis said he’s similar to French in that the two are both “very passionate.” He differs from his predecessor in that he doesn’t post on X, he said.
“I share his passions. I share his desire to see a country that serves us all,” Davis said.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
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