Vote Republican. The Whole Ticket. This November.

Harris County government is broken. Five straight years of budget shortfalls. A bail policy that keeps releasing repeat offenders back onto the street. A flood bond that was sold as disaster protection and delivered as a political slush fund. Affordable housing promises that were never kept. There is one way to fix it: vote a straight Republican ticket, top to bottom, this November.

What’s Broken

• Budget Crisis, Five Years Running — Harris County faces its fifth consecutive budget shortfall, with projected deficits ranging from $129 million to nearly $300 million, even as commissioners look for new ways to raise your taxes.
• Catch and Release — The O’Donnell consent decree ended cash bail for most misdemeanors, resulting in the rapid release of the large majority of arrestees on unsecured bonds. The result: a stream of repeat-offender stories, including defendants found competent to stand trial, released on bond, and then vanishing before trial.
• High Crime, Judges Who Won’t Hold Criminals Accountable — Houston’s crime rate remains nearly double the national average, and much of it traces back to the courtroom, not just the streets. At least 162 Harris County residents have been murdered since 2021 by criminals who were free on bond. The Houston Police Officers’ Union has called the pattern of judges releasing violent offenders a “broader, systemic failure that has turned Harris County into a national example of what happens when rogue judges put ideology over justice.”
• The Flood Bond Betrayal — Voters approved a $2.5 billion flood control bond after Hurricane Harvey, sold on public input across every watershed. Instead, it was turned into a race-based program that failed to deliver the projects promised to the people who voted for it. Years later, most of the bond’s construction still hadn’t broken ground, and the county risked losing up to $660 million in federal matching funds over missed deadlines — while a separate 2024 tax increase was needed just to catch up on deferred maintenance.
• Broken Housing Promises — A pledge of 3,000 new affordable housing units delivered fewer than 1,000, while median home prices and rents kept climbing.
• Tax Hikes, Even After Failure — Harris County’s democrat majority raised the property tax rate roughly 10% for Fiscal Year 2025 in a 4-1, party-line vote, on top of years of rising valuations. In 2022, Republican commissioners had to break quorum for more than a month just to block an even bigger increase.
• Toll Road Slush Fund — Harris County pulls hundreds of millions of dollars a year out of the Harris County Toll Road Authority’s surplus with almost no oversight: nearly $1.5 billion between 2021 and 2024 alone, including $545 million in a single year. County commissioners lobbied against a 2025 reform bill that would have redirected some of that toll money to reimburse Houston police, fire, and EMS for responding to crashes on county tollways.
• Growing Government, Not Solving Problems — Democrats created a new, unelected Harris County Administrator position and appointed Erica Lee Carter, daughter of the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, to the $411,000-a-year role. They also created a Harris County Elections Administrator office that became such a mess of ballot delays and mismanagement that the Texas Legislature stepped in and abolished it.
• The Constable Contract Threat — In 2020, Commissioner Adrian Garcia proposed studying the county’s constable contract deputy program for efficacy and equity, and floated eliminating constables’ ability to enter into those patrol contracts at all. Neighborhoods and HOAs across the county rely on the program for extra patrols; heavy opposition from constables and residents forced Garcia to withdraw the proposal within days.
• Jail Deaths and Overcrowding — Harris County Jail recorded 27 in-custody deaths in 2022, the highest total since at least 2000, while repeatedly failing state safety inspections; the sheriff admitted the jail was out of compliance with state standards for 14 of the previous 20 years. Overcrowding got so bad the county had to ship inmates out of state.
• The COVID Money Is Running Out — Harris County received $915 million in one-time federal COVID relief funds that must be spent by the end of 2026. With that money drying up, the county has already imposed a hiring freeze to help close a $200 million budget deficit and cut popular programs like early childhood education — even as law enforcement funding requests went underfunded and rollover funds for constables were cut.
• The Elevate Strategies Scandal — A one-woman consulting firm run by a democrat operative, in business less than two years and headquartered out of a residential apartment in Montrose, beat out UT Health — which scored higher in the competitive bidding — for an $11 million Harris County COVID vaccine outreach contract. Commissioners balked at approving the deal, so the county’s top elected democrat used emergency pandemic powers to push it through anyway. Even after the contract was cancelled amid corruption allegations, the county still paid the firm $1.425 million and has recovered only some of it. Three senior aides were indicted for steering the deal; one of them landed a new, higher-paying county job — never publicly posted, salary bumped from $111,000 to $125,000 — just days after Texas Rangers served search warrants.
• Commissioners Court Dysfunction — Public infighting among Harris County’s democrat commissioners over taxes, childcare funding, and law enforcement pay has repeatedly spilled into open disputes, walkouts, and formal censures on the court.
• Houston ISD Taken Over by the State — Years of academic and financial mismanagement led the Texas Education Agency to take control of Houston ISD in 2023, appointing a new superintendent and stripping elected trustees of their power. The state has since extended that takeover through 2027.
• Housing, Homelessness, and Air Quality — Rising housing costs continue to squeeze renters and homeowners across the county; homelessness has allegedly declined in Houston’s urban core but is rising in the suburbs; and persistent air-quality problems tied to industry and traffic remain an unresolved public-health concern.

It wasn’t always like this. Under Republican leadership, Harris County prosecuted violent crime aggressively, cut unnecessary arrests, and built the flood control bond with real public input. That record is recent enough to remember, and good enough to restore.

The Fix: Vote the Whole Ticket

Vote Republican. The Whole Ticket. This November.

Election Day — November 3, 2026

The Action Plan: Make It Too Big to Rig

The single best defense against a close, disputed, or manipulated result is a margin nobody can argue with. Elections decided by a few hundred votes invite recounts, lawsuits, and endless doubt. Elections decided by tens of thousands of votes don’t. The goal for Harris County Republicans this November isn’t just to win — it’s to win by a margin so large it’s too big to rig, too big to dispute, and too big to ignore.

Talk to Friends and Family — What to Say

Most people who don’t vote aren’t opposed to voting Republican — they just don’t think their vote matters, or they don’t know what’s at stake locally. Local elections don’t get the attention presidential races do, so a short, specific conversation goes further than you’d think. Here are the openers that work:

• Lead with their wallet. “Did you know Harris County has had a budget shortfall five years running, and commissioners keep talking about raising your taxes to cover it?”
• Lead with public safety. “Under the county’s bail policy, most people arrested on misdemeanors are released within hours — there are cases of repeat offenders cycling right back onto the street. That’s decided at the county level, not the federal level.”
• Lead with the flood bond. “Remember the $2.5 billion flood bond after Harvey? It was sold as protection for every watershed, and a lot of the promised projects still haven’t been built where they were promised.”
• Lead with government growth. “The county created a new $411,000-a-year administrator position and handed it out as a political favor. That’s your tax money.”
• Make it easy, not preachy. Don’t argue politics in the abstract — ask a direct question: “Are you registered? Do you have a plan to vote before November 3rd?” People respond to a concrete ask far better than a lecture.
• Follow up. A single conversation rarely changes a habit. Check back in October when early voting opens and ask if they need a ride, a reminder, or their polling location.

Your Personal Checklist

1. Confirm your registration. Check your status at votetexas.gov — it takes two minutes.
2. Join Fired Up to Vote. Sign up at fireduptovote.com to register, confirm your status, and get reminders as Election Day approaches.
3. Make a plan. Early voting runs October 19 – 30, 2026; Election Day is November 3, 2026. Decide now when and where you’ll vote.
4. Bring three. Commit to bringing three people with you — a spouse, a neighbor, an adult child — who might not otherwise make it to the polls.
5. Talk to five. Use the talking points above with five people this week: family, coworkers, your church or civic group.
6. Volunteer. Sign up as a poll watcher or election worker through the Harris County GOP — every precinct needs eyes on the process. Sign up to become an election worker here.
7. Host or join a block walk or watch party. Organized turnout efforts consistently outperform individual ones.
8. Share this page. Use the share buttons on the left to send it to your network — the more people who see the facts, the bigger the margin.