Weeks after he received the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Trailblazer Award, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said he voted for Donald Trump on Tuesday.
“I voted with 100% certainty that Donald Trump cares more about the issues that are most important to me and my family — such as fighting crime, reducing tax burdens on hard-working people and businesses and enhancing border security — than Joe Biden,” Johnson said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “I also trust that Donald Trump will be much more receptive than any liberal Democrat administration to on-the-ground ideas about how to actually improve America’s cities by making them safer, greener, and more prosperous.”
In September 2023, Johnson announced he was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. That decision came just four months after he won re-election.
“I’m also proud that Dallas, Texas, is the largest city in the United States of America to be led by a Republican,” Johnson said in a video message to the Republican National Committee last month. “It is a great honor to accept the RNC Trailblazer Award for 2024 — an award that has recognized so many wonderful leaders, such as United States Sen. Tim Scott, Secretary Ben Carson, [Virginia] Lt. Gov. Winsome [Earle-]Sears, and so many more. My journey to the Republican Party stands as an invitation to our brothers and sisters across America who are tired of being taken for granted by today’s Democrat Party.”
In Texas, mayor and city council positions are generally nonpartisan. But Johnson served in the Texas House of Representatives for 10 years as a Democrat before becoming Dallas’ mayor.
“As a mayor and during my time in the Texas House of Representatives, I have always stood for law and order, fiscal conservatism, and greater ethics and accountability,” Johnson said during his RNC speech. “In government, these principles are bedrock Republican principles, and they are principles held by the overwhelming majority of black Americans.”
According to The Christian Post, Johnson attributed his party switch to his faith.
“I was raised in a … family that was very, very faith-oriented,” he told the Post. “The church was hugely important to us. I think I was always politically in a weird posture with the Democratic Party.”
For his effort, Johnson was the target of a recall bid that ended on Tuesday when activist Davante Peters failed to file the petition, which needed more than 103,000 signatures, with the city secretary by the deadline. The mayor responded with a list of challenges he faced during the first few years in office and excerpts of media coverage of crime and homelessness in Dallas and the city’s economy.
“You sort of inherit the Democratic Party as a cultural heirloom when you’re African American in this country,” Johnson told the Post. “It sort of gets handed to you as part of who you are. I know I had … more phone calls with people distraught about this party switch than I ever would have gotten if I had told people that I was actually leaving the church.”
Johnson also criticized the party for playing the victim card.
“If you’re successful and you’re white male, it’s because of course you are,” he told the Post. “If you’re unsuccessful as an African American, it’s, well, the deck was stacked against you.”
In his Trailblazer Award speech, Johnson said the Democratic Party has “not only left behind the black community but all Americans” and urged them to vote Republican. According to The Dallas Morning News, it was the first time Johnson endorsed a candidate beyond the local level. He told CBS 11 in December that he turned down requests from President Joe Biden to endorse his bid for president in 2020.
“[Biden] had collected every endorsement of every prominent Democrat in Dallas except for the sitting mayor, who was a known Democrat, because I made a promise on the campaign trail that I would not endorse in any partisan races as mayor,” Johnson told CBS 11. “And I have maintained that promise, possibly to my detriment. I have never endorsed any person running for any office where you run as a D or a R.”
Johnson is chair and president of the Republican Mayors Association.
“Voters deserve to have real choices at the ballot box — not simply a choice between an extreme left-wing Democrat and a Democratic socialist,” he said during his award speech. “This is what the Republican Party offers voters — an opportunity to elect people who will actually represent us and fight for us. Together, we stand committed to retiring Joe Biden and his enablers this fall and expanding the GOP more than ever in the process.”
Johnson received the award during the Black Republican Trailblazers ceremony on February 12 in Washington, D.C. It is given to “an individual who has been an exceptional leader in the Republican Party through advancing conservative legislation, helping to elect Republicans, or growing the Republican Party,” according to the RNC.
