Democrats lost considerable ground in Harris County’s judicial races Tuesday, with 10 Republican victors claiming once-reliably Democratic seats.
The Republican wins follow a slight shift in voters moving away from Democratic candidates in Harris County, where they have typically secured judicial seats by slim but comfortable margins. This year, none of the victorious judicial candidates from either party who faced a challenger tallied more than 51.5 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results with all precincts reporting.
Democrats still won 19 of the 29 judicial races on the ballot in Harris, though 12 victors ran unopposed and seven defeated Republicans by narrow margins. In 2020, Democratic candidates won all 15 contested races for county judicial seats, with most winners earning about 54 percent of the vote.
The 10 Republican winners include five new civil court judges, two criminal courts judges who defeated incumbent Democrats, two criminal court judges who won full terms after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott appointed them to newly created districts and one county court judge.
“They’re going to do great things in the courts,” Harris County Republican Party Chair Cindy Siegel said of the GOP judge-elects. “They’re going to apply the law fairly and they’re going to have integrity, and I think the voters of Harris County are going to be really pleased with the results.”
The tally of 29 races includes judicial contests where all Harris County residents, and only Harris County residents, were eligible to vote. The races involved judges who will handle criminal, civil, probate and other cases. The count does not include elections for justice of the peace, in which only some county residents can vote, or regional and statewide judicial races.
Democrats lost ground throughout Harris County in 2024, though they narrowly held on to several top offices. Incumbent Democratic County Attorney Christian Menefee and Democratic District Attorney candidate Sean Teare, for example, each won with about 51 percent support.
Emily Muñoz Detoto, a Republican who defeated a Democratic incumbent for the 177th District Criminal Court, said she decided to run because she lives downtown and was tired of watching “the catch-and-release system that the Harris County criminal justice system has become.” She narrowly won with 50.3 percent of the vote.
“I’m very excited to start day one on the job,” Muñoz Detoto said. “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get this county cleaned up.”
Well-funded opposition
Democratic judicial candidates in Harris County faced an onslaught of advertising from Stop Houston Murders PAC, a political action committee that encouraged voters to vote out “soft on crime” Democratic judges.
The committee received about $8.2 million in donations this election cycle, nearly all of it coming from another political action committee, Judicial Fairness PAC. Campaign finance records show Judicial Fairness PAC totaled $17.6 million in contributions this year, with most of the money coming from corporations, company executives and a $2 million donation by Elon Musk’s revocable trust.
Ultimately, a tiny fraction of voters supported some Democrats and some Republicans in judicial races, the results suggest.
Republicans also made minimal gains on the district criminal court side, with Democrats keeping eight seats, Republicans flipping two seats previously held by Democrats and two Republican incumbents winning re-election.
Still, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said Wednesday that Stop Houston Murders PAC was instrumental in sending a message to voters about the need to be tougher on crime. The newly elected Republican judges have “the talent that the voters wanted” and “will work to get violent criminals off the streets,” Bettencourt said.
“The courthouse couldn’t continue to operate the way it was,” Bettencourt said. “The public realized that there is a difference between a Republican jurist and a Democrat jurist.”
Mike Doyle, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, said the PAC’s “false attacks” have had a huge impact on Democratic judicial candidates over the last two election cycles.
“The reality is, if you keep saying a lie long enough, it’s going to have an effect. As a result, I think we’ve lost some great public servants in the judiciary from that,” Doyle said.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said one of the biggest motivators for Republicans is promoting crime as a top priority. The message clearly resonated with voters this election cycle, he said.
“Republicans did a good job at articulating an issue that they knew they could win on, and it was something they could connect to specific offices,” Rottinghaus said. “Democrats didn’t have much of an answer for the criticism of judges on crime issues. That’s a liability, because there was no counter-messaging from Democrats on what ended up being a big motivator for Republicans down ballot.”
Down-ballot burden
Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project, said Democrats are less likely to finish filling out their ballot compared to Republicans, which can often give them an edge in down-ballot races that are usually a lower priority for voters.
In Harris County, more than 1.5 million people cast votes in the presidential election but the judicial races averaged about 1.4 million votes.
“It’s very rare to have a voter come into the voting booth with many, let alone any, considerations about which judicial candidates to support beyond the party next to their name,” Blank said. “A lot of voters don’t feel comfortable casting votes for people they don’t know anything about, especially for offices that they’re really woefully under-informed about, and so many voters just leave it blank.”
The Texas Legislature abolished straight-ticket voting in the 2020 elections, which allowed voters to register support for all of their party’s candidates with a single vote. Instead, voters must manually vote for every race on the ballot, which totaled 50 to 70 races in Harris County.
Political analysts say that move has been a large detriment to Democrats. That impact, Blank said, can also be seen directly in this year’s election results.
“I think it’s a little bit easier for Republicans, who tend to rely on older, more consistent voters, who are just, in general, more accustomed to engaging in that kind of behavior,” Blank said.
Judges of Harris County’s 64 judicial districts are elected to four-year terms. There are several types of district courts: civil, criminal, family and juvenile, each of which have different responsibilities.
For example, civil courts handle non-criminal matters totaling more than $200, such as property disputes and divorce cases. Criminal district courts handle felony criminal cases. Family courts decide on family and children matters, such as visitation rights and emancipation of minors.
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