While it is not likely that it will happen statewide, Tarrant County has, in fact, gone blue in the 2020 presidential election.
Texas got everybody all excited early on Election Night by showing the Biden/Harris team leading in the statewide count. Those hopes were dashed rather early on, of course, and then most people stopped watching the presidential race vote count here. Texas and its 38 electoral college votes were firmly in the Trump column.
That remains true today, two days later. But for those of us progressives/liberals who live in Tarrant County, today there came a ray of hope.
I didn’t even realize that ballots were still being counted in Texas, but they are. At least, here in the Fort Worth area they are. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, as of Thursday afternoon, election workers “continued processing thousands of mail-in ballots left over from the election Tuesday.”
And as a result, it turns out, a majority of Tarrant County voters had voted for Joe Biden — at least, at this point in the counting, and as we have all learned this week, counts can change quickly in an election. Still, considering that Tarrant has always been steadfastly red, it is a moment of consequence to know that, as of about 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5, Tarrant County was blue.
According to a tally posted at 2:30 today by the county elections officials, Biden/Harris has pulled ahead of Trump/Pence by a margin of 0.05 percent — 403,698 votes to 402,271 votes.
We’ll check in again tomorrow, to see where things stand as the count continues. But for now, we declare Tarrant County to be (at least a little bit) blue.
— Tammye Nash
