In the early hours of the morning, you can catch Deborah Peoples in her yard in east Fort Worth.
Her house, built in 1960, sits on three quarters of an acre, with stairs leading to the bottom of a hill where there are pecan trees and a peach tree she planted for her mom. Down the holler are hives of bees.
Peoples gleaned her love of gardening from her mother, and has tried to pass that on to her two daughters with some success.
The yard serves as a sanctuary and her peace. When she’s here, it’s her, her mother, who died in 1997, and God all talking to each other.
When Peoples arrived at Black Coffee in east Fort Worth one afternoon in June, one of her freshly done peachy pink nails (prepped for meetings) was already broken — presumably from yard work.
Most people would use gloves, she says later. But there’s something life affirming about digging your hands in the soil, even if it means needing to clean under your nails later.
She wants to get down in the dirt for Tarrant County too.
Peoples is this year’s Democratic candidate for Tarrant County Judge. Voters decide between her and her opponent, Republican Tim O’Hare, on Nov. 8. Early voting begins Monday.
The open seat sits at the crux of change. After 20 years of moderate Republican leadership, the fork in the road now has two paths: Voters can either take the sharp turn right or the one to the left.
O’Hare has run his campaign on law enforcement support, lowering property taxes and election integrity, all while bringing national issues like critical race theory into the mix even though they aren’t under the discretion of the county government. He has critiqued Peoples for her stances on law enforcement and abortion and questioned whether she would be inclusive.
Meanwhile, Peoples has maintained she’s the inclusive candidate and can work across party lines. O’Hare has caught heat from immigration ordinances passed in Farmers Branch when he was a mayor and member of its city council. During the primary campaign, O’Hare caused division in his own party with the way he ran against his primary opponent, former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.
This year’s run marks yet another race for public office for Peoples, a 70-year-old former AT&T executive who spent eight years as the Tarrant County Democratic Party chair. It marks another opportunity for her to flip county leadership blue in a county that’s historically red, this time in one of the most high-profile races in the state.
Peoples is no stranger to losing. She got a taste of it in her races for Fort Worth mayor against Price in 2019 and Mattie Parker in 2021. In the race against Parker, Peoples was the top vote-getter on Election Day, but lost in a runoff against Parker.
When it came time to nominate candidates in this year’s local races, Peoples was the choice for area Democrats for county judge. But with the county’s Republican stronghold and Price in the game on the Republican side, Peoples said party officials were sure the race was going to be tough.
There was one question on everyone’s minds: Could the county judge’s seat be won by a Democrat?
“I said, So you are really asking me to take one for the team, because if you really believe that this race is unwinnable, you’re asking me to just be the sacrificial lamb and nobody likes to lose,” Peoples said.
But she’s in this 100%. To her, there’s a clear difference between her and O’Hare. She believes she’s the one with the administrative experience for the role.
“You look at the tax rate, you’re a good steward of the people’s tax money, you make sure that we’re doing good infrastructure and putting roads and bridges where they need to go,” Peoples said. “You manage the things like the hospital system. It is an administrative job, it’s not a social justice warrior.”
She also has the love for people, and said she thrives on Tarrant County’s complexity and diversity. Everywhere in the county is different, but at the end of the day, residents all want the same things, she said.
There was a day a friend texted Peoples a picture of the wall of portraits of past county judges hanging outside the county commissioners courtroom, along with a message: “I can’t wait to see your picture there.” If she wins, it will come with firsts.
Peoples’ portrait would be the first woman’s on the wall. She’d be the first Black person to hold the county’s top office.
Would it be an honor? Yes, she said. But to Peoples, the bottom line is getting the job done.
Growing up
Peoples was born in Louisiana to a Philadelphian father who was stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and a Texan mom who was the director of the “colored USO” when it was still segregated.
When her dad left the Army, Peoples and her family lived in Philadelphia for five years. And after Peoples’ parents divorced, she and her sisters started their way to California so their mom could take a job at USO.
They didn’t make it there. Her family stopped in Odessa to care for her grandfather, who had suffered a stroke. They ended up staying.
Growing up in a segregated Odessa, Peoples said her family was able to reap benefits. The community was poor but no one knew it, and residents were rich in ways you wouldn’t think. Peoples said she grew up with Black role models throughout the community.
After high school, Peoples went to Texas Woman’s University in 1969, right after it desegregated.
It was here Peoples got involved in student government and served as treasurer. She eventually had to step down due to bad grades.
A particularly bad semester had Peoples calling her mom and hopping on a bus to Odessa. When she arrived, it wasn’t the welcome she hoped for.
She found her mother sitting in the family’s station wagon in her pajamas with an ultimatum: If she stayed in Odessa, Peoples wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing. She had two choices: get back on the bus and salvage her semester or do chores for a family friend.
Peoples got back on the bus, and graduated from the university in 1973.
After college, Peoples worked as a community affairs aide for the city of Fort Worth where she interpreted EEO laws for training for $500 or $600 a month.
Then a friend came to her and said if she worked at the phone company, she could make $1,000 a month. Peoples jumped at the opportunity and eventually found herself at an office across the street from City Hall.
The phone company, which eventually became AT&T, offered Peoples a test which she passed the same day. And thus started her 34-year journey through the company that culminated with her being a vice president.
Dethroning a Republican stronghold
In Texas, it’s all eyes on Tarrant County.
Tarrant County has long been the last urban Republican county in Texas and is a barometer for the state. Draw your lens out to view the entire state and you’ll find blue patches from Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio in a sea of red.
Will Peoples be the one to flip it?
Because redistricting left few competitive races for the U.S. House and Texas House and Senate, Tarrant County’s judge race has become among one of the most competitive in the state, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.
Tarrant County hasn’t seen Democratic leadership at the county level in 36 years. Mike Moncrief, who served as judge from 1975 to 1986, was the last Democrat to hold the county judge position.
Tarrant County saw moderate leadership in the form of Tom Vandergriff, Arlington’s boy mayor who was elected at 25 and was a Democrat during his time in Congress and a Republican during his time as county judge. Then there was Glen Whitley, a moderate Republican who isn’t seeking reelection and has endorsed a Democrat in a statewide race.
Had Price defeated O’Hare during the primary, Jones believes Vandergriff- and Whitley-style governance may have continued in Tarrant County.
“We likely wouldn’t be having a conversation about the competitiveness of the race if she were the Republican candidate,” Jones said.
Tarrant County residents don’t have the option of a center right candidate. They can either go right with Tim O’Hare or left with Peoples, Jones said.
It leaves independent and moderate voters to ponder their options.
To Peoples, Tarrant County needs this trifecta
Peoples’ recipe for Tarrant County if she wins comes down to this: increasing job opportunities, expanding health care access and increasing affordable housing.
It’s no secret the county isn’t in charge of the schools. But Peoples argues the county judge essentially operates as a recruiter. He or she needs to bring businesses here and train people for those jobs. This means going to schools, asking what their needs are and working with them and other educational institutions to provide things like trade programs, she said.
As Tarrant County grows, Peoples also sees value in working with mayors to make sure they have the infrastructure they need to grow.
And that infrastructure in Tarrant County includes more than just the roads. It also includes the $800 million JPS bond that passed in 2018 and has seen little progress even as inflation increases construction costs. On top of staying on top of the bond, Peoples wants to expand health care access across the county.
One of the ways Peoples plans to expand access is through JPS and the clinic system. She’s happy about progress on JPS’ northeast clinic, but she believes there needs to be a public education campaign on the health care resources available through the hospital system.
Peoples’ opponent, O’Hare, has said he wants to lower the property tax rate by 20%. Had the cut taken place under this year’s budget, it would’ve eliminated $105.5 million in revenue.
Peoples thinks people need to focus on school taxes. In Fort Worth, people pay more taxes to the schools than they do any other entity. She warns that when you start cutting back on taxes, you have to cut into resources.
Another campaign point for Peoples: affordable housing.
When businesses come to Tarrant County, it’s not just the CEOs, Peoples said — it’s the middle management and clerical staff too, and the county needs to have affordable spaces available for them. She wants to work with developers to help them see the bigger picture of what the county needs housing-wise and ultimately provide more affordable options.
To her, bringing the best and brightest to the county means meeting the trifecta of having available jobs, affordable housing and public transit.
“Good leaders look at things holistically,” she said.
And while Tarrant County needs to focus on its infrastructure as it rapidly develops and increase jobs and health care access, it also needs a leader who values inclusion, she says.
“We’re not a conservative county,” Peoples said. “We’re not a liberal county. We’re a county with 2.1 million people who want to continue to grow and thrive, and they need somebody who understands that.”
Why Peoples
So why do Democrats want Deborah Peoples for Tarrant County judge?
To Allison Campolo, Tarrant County Democratic Party chair, Peoples built on the party’s progress and moved it forward.
She is excited to see Peoples, who she’s known since 2017, bring her progressive policies to county government, as well as her commitment to both justice and fairness.
At a campaign event one Friday afternoon, a small group of people showed up at Rahr & Sons Brewery in Fort Worth’s south side to sip fall-themed beers.
Marie Holliday, who runs her dental practice in Sundance Square, admires Peoples’ authenticity and transparency.
“She’s for the people of Tarrant County,” she said. “That has not been the case in the competitor.”
Holliday believes Peoples will continue outgoing judge Whitley’s tradition of inclusivity, as well as expand services and health care to communities with disparities.
Bishop Kenneth Spears, pastor of First Saint John Cathedral in Fort Worth, was also at the Friday event and has known Peoples upward of two decades. Spears was born and raised in Fort Worth and believes under Peoples’ leadership, the city might have a different look, sound and experience.
He acknowledges Tarrant County’s reputation as a red county. But he thinks it’s changing. And Spears thinks Peoples will have an eye for unrest on the commissioners court.
“You’ve got to have somebody for all the people,” Spears said. “It can’t just be party driven.”
