The largest city in the U.S. with a Republican mayor is right here in North Texas -- but it is no longer Fort Worth.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has announced in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that he is switching party affiliations from Democrat to Republican.
"Unfortunately, many of our cities are in disarray," Mayor Johnson writes in The Wall Street Journal. "Mayors and other local elected officials have failed to make public safety a priority or to exercise fiscal restraint. Most of these local leaders are proud Democrats who view cities as laboratories for liberalism rather than as havens for opportunity and free enterprise.
"Too often, local tax dollars are spent on policies that exacerbate homelessness, coddle criminals and make it harder for ordinary people to make a living," Johnson continues. "And too many local Democrats insist on virtue signaling—proposing half-baked government programs that aim to solve every single societal ill—and on finding new ways to thumb their noses at Republicans at the state or federal level."
Johnson was first elected mayor of Dallas in 2019 and ran unopposed in his re-election campaign earlier this year.
He is term-limited, and he writes that when his second and final term is up in 2027, he will end his career in elected office "as a Republican."
Before becoming mayor of Dallas, Johnson served as a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives, where he says he prided himself on working closely with conservatives to improve policing, public education and water infrastructure.
"I was never a favorite of the Democratic caucus, and the feeling was mutual," writes Johnson. "By the time I was elected mayor -- a nonpartisan office -- in 2019, I was relieved to be free from hyperpartisanship and ready to focus on solving problems."
With Johnson's party switch, Texas is now home to the two biggest cities in America led by Republican mayors.
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