When Dexter McCoy and Daniel Wong won their primaries for Fort Bend County judge earlier this year, no one knew how contentious the race would become.
McCoy, the Precinct 4 commissioner and Democratic nominee for judge, is leading Wong 49 percent to 40 percent, according to a poll released Wednesday by Texas Southern University.
Although Wong has never been elected Fort Bend County judge, he’s the incumbent, due to an interim appointment made in April after former County Judge KP George was suspended from office.
McCoy and fellow Democrat Grady Prestage have contended that Wong’s interim appointment expired in June when a civil case against George was dismissed; Wong has refused to step aside even though there are concerns about whether decisions made while he’s presiding could be challenged legally.
A trial on whether Wong’s appointment is valid is slated to begin after the November election, at which time the matter will be moot.
Fort Bend County Republicans and Democrats have been at odds over the issue since McCoy and Prestage began boycotting commissioners court meetings in June, saying they won’t participate in what they consider to be illegal meetings.
Wong has been accused of retaliating against the Democrats by cutting judge positions, “gutting” the county attorney’s office and taking advantage of Prestage and McCoy’s absences to change court procedures. Wong hired MAGA Republican Trever Nehls as his chief of staff, even though Nehls is the GOP nominee for a U.S. Congressional seat that his twin brother Troy previously held.
Republicans have accused the Dems of abandoning their offices and playing politics at the expense of taxpayers who “deserve representation.”
It’s been clear for months that the residents of Fort Bend County are fed up with the situation, and the TSU poll shows that a majority plan to side with McCoy on Election Day.
Although the poll shows McCoy with a 9-percentage-point lead, 11 percent of the voters are still undecided. Early voting begins Monday, October 19, and Election Day is November 3.
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones, who conducted the poll with TSU professor Michael Adams, said the results weren’t surprising.
“Fort Bend County is purple and tends to lean one way or the other, depending on the election year,” he said. “It was almost inevitable in a down year for Republicans that we would expect the Democratic candidate to be doing better at the county level. It’s a Herculean task if not almost impossible for a Republican to win countywide this cycle.”
Jones added that Wong’s few months on the job as the interim judge didn’t help him. “Close to half of likely voters still don’t know who he is,” Jones said. If he hadn’t been serving as interim judge, he wouldn’t be as well-known but he also wouldn’t be “slightly underwater in terms of favorability,” Jones said.
Prior to the poll release, the Houston Press asked University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus for his thoughts on the Fort Bend County judge’s race.
“I think Dexter is going to clock [Wong],” Rottinghaus said earlier this week. “The bloom is off the rose on the far-right governing of counties. I think Wong is not a good candidate. He basically bails on every single one of the candidate forums, which makes it look like he’s hiding.”
“Every Democrat is going to do extremely well in blue and blue-leaning counties. Fort Bend County certainly leans blue, and it’ll be much more so in this cycle because of the politics nationally,” Rottinghaus added.
The TSU survey also shows predictions on how Fort Bend County residents will vote in statewide races, which is of interest since the county is the most diverse in Texas. Fort Bend County has close to 1 million residents, 29 percent of whom are white, 25 percent Latino, 22 percent Asian American, and 20 percent Black.
“What’s locking this race in for Dexter McCoy is that Black voters punch above their population weight in Fort Bend County as a share of the electorate and they’re voting at a 90-10 margin for the Democratic candidates,” Jones said.
The survey shows that, In the Texas U.S. Senate Race, Democrat James Talarico (56 percent) leads Republican Ken Paxton (38 percent) by 18 percentage points, with 4 percent undecided.
In the Texas governor race, Democrat Gina Hinojosa (53 percent) leads Republican Greg Abbott (42 percent) by 11 percentage points, with 3 percent undecided.
In the Texas railroad commissioner race, Democrat Jon Rosenthal (50 percent) leads Republican Bo French (35 percent) by 15 percentage points, with 12 percent undecided. Rosenthal leads French by 61 points [73 percent to 12 percent] among Asian American voters who identify as South Asian.
The sudden interest among South Asian voters in the race for railroad commissioner, which oversees oil and gas operations, is likely due to French’s recent comments about “foreigners” from India being accepted into the University of Texas and displacing other students. French doubled down on his racist social media post, and voters took note. Rosenthal brought in $488,000 in campaign donations from 49 states during the most recent campaign finance filing period.
“French’s tweet and other statements have taken a race that should have been a lock for Republicans and have turned it into a contest with a considerable amount of uncertainty,” Jones said. “Yes, French is probably still the odds-on favorite to win in November but he’s not anywhere near the lock that he would have been had he simply kept his mouth shut after [winning his primary].”
