A $100,000 campaign check in Tarrant judge race? That’s huge money in a county election

How badly do conservative Republicans want control of the courthouse?

Enough to put six figures behind it.

In a stunningly garish gift even for Texas politics, Westworth Village oil executive Hollis Sullivan donated $100,000 on Sept. 15 toward Southlake Republican firebrand Tim O’Hare’s already-well-funded campaign for county judge.

Donating through a “biblical values” political action fund for Christian conservatives opposing same-sex marriage, abortion and all sex outside of marriage, Sullivan lifted O’Hare to a 5-to-1 money edge over Democratic long shot Deborah Peoples of Fort Worth.

It wasn’t even the first.

Back in January, Sullivan gave the same Fort Worth-based We Can Keep It PAC $100,000 toward O’Hare’s primary election victory over former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.

In the same primary, financial executive Don Woodard Jr. gave O’Hare $290,000.

That’s more alone than the Tarrant County Democratic Party’s entire fall campaign fund.

Six-figure gifts to win a single county office — ceremonially called “county judge” but really the presiding officer at the Commissioners Court — are staggering in Texas politics. A $25,000 check usually raises eyebrows.

Sullivan is “a devout Christian and he’s made a lot of money in oil and gas,” O’Hare said Thursday. “He’s a man of strong faith and a strong pro-business guy.”

Republicans had good reason to ask donors for extra money.

They are up against El Paso Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s multi-million-dollar gubernatorial campaign. O’Rourke’s turnout efforts could boost votes for Democrats down the ballot.

They still hold the Texas Capitol and the Tarrant County courthouse in an iron grip. But they lost some voters when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a right to abortion.

But O’Hare should be able to win without an extra $100,000.

It’s a slow midterm election with a Democrat in the White House. Peoples has raised less than half as much money as she did last year when she ran for Fort Worth mayor.

“I’ll be real honest with you,” said current County Judge Glen Whitley, a Hurst Republican. “I’m not sure I ever got a $25,000 donation.”

County judges don’t even make any decisions involving the oil industry, he said.

He compared Sullivan’s donation to West Texas oil moneybags Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks’ heavy-handed involvement supporting faith-and-values Republican campaigns. (A fund bankrolled by Dunn and Wilks gave O’Hare $25,000.)

Neither Whitley nor Price is endorsing in the race, a rare rebuke to a party’s nominee.

Price said she knows Sullivan as a “very quiet guy” and views his donation simply as showing strong party support.

“I’m guessing he’s very, very conservative and just wants to give to keep the county conservative,” said Price, a courthouse Republican and county tax assessor for 11 years before she ran for mayor.

Some business leaders are “nervous” the county might flip to the Democratic Party, she said.

A few $100,000 checks can ease that nervousness.