With a little more than a week until early voting opens for the primary runoffs, Tarrant County Republicans and GOP candidates at the top of the ballot urged party unity ahead of the November midterm elections.
Through party unity, prayer and mass mobilization of conservative voters, the local GOP can not only maintain control of the county’s highest elected offices but also drive a spiritual revival, speakers said at a May 9 “night of action” event hosted at Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth.
“You can win if you just mobilize the people who think like you to get out and vote,” said Bo French, former chairman of the Tarrant County GOP. He faces incumbent Texas Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright in a runoff for the GOP nomination for a seat on the commission that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry.
French took the stage Saturday afternoon with other candidates slated to appear on the May 26 runoff ballot: Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. senator, and Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton, who is running for attorney general.
The March 3 primaries determined Republican and Democratic nominees for county, state and federal offices before the November midterms. In races where no candidate drew more than 50% of votes, the top two vote-getters face off again May 26. Early voting opens May 18.
Hosted by Mercy Culture’s political wing, For Liberty & Justice, the event’s lineup of speakers also included outgoing state Rep. Nate Schatzline, a founder of the host group; Nate Sheets, GOP nominee for Texas agriculture commissioner; Kambree Nelson, a Christian activist and influencer; and Kyle Rittenhouse, a conservative gun rights activist who gained fame after being acquitted for killing two people during a 2020 racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
YouTube personality Alex Stein, who gained online notoriety for disrupting North Texas local government meetings, was planned as the event’s emcee but was removed from the program after making jokes about women’s body parts, race and marijuana — which Schatzline later described as “wildly inappropriate.”
“As believers in the room, we do not believe in the things that Alex Stein just said on this stage,” Schatzline said, addressing the room. “We do not engage with that type of rhetoric.”
For Liberty & Justice also posted a statement to its social media page, disavowing Stein’s comments.
Attendees gather at Mercy Culture Church on May 9, 2026 for a “night of action” event hosted by the church’s political nonprofit, For Liberty & Justice. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)
Saturday’s event marked For Liberty & Justice’s second “night of action” event of the year, following a February meeting that featured remarks from Paxton and other Republican candidates such as Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare and former state Sen. Don Huffines, who is running for the Texas comptroller’s office.
Founded by Schatzline in 2021, For Liberty & Justice aims to equip Christian conservatives to run for public office and get engaged in local government through its online training academy called Campaign University, which is offered to churches across the country.
Schatzline, also a pastor at Mercy Culture, is stepping down from his seat in the Texas House after accepting a position on President Donald Trump’s national faith advisory board last year. Schatzline previously told the Fort Worth Report he hopes his appointment to oversee pastoral relations on the board will help empower pastors across the country to mobilize their congregants with resources such as Campaign University.
Christian conservatives must take action to mass mobilize voters in order for the GOP to be successful in November, said Carlos Turcios, a Republican precinct chair and director of For Liberty & Justice’s Tarrant County chapter.
“I don’t want everyone here to be discouraged,” Turcios told about 100 attendees. “I want everyone here to be energized, to be fired up, because we got a country to save, we got a state to save, we got a city to save, we got a county to save, we got America to save.”
For Liberty & Justice, a political nonprofit organization of Mercy Culture Church, began its “night of action” event in worship on May 9, 2026. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)
Attendees of For Liberty & Justice’s “night of action” take communion on May 9, 2026. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)
Republican elected officials across the state and county have framed the midterm elections as “the most important of our lifetime,” as historically red Tarrant County shows signs of trending purple and after a Democrat pulled off an upset victory in a historically Republican-held Senate district in January. The March 3 primaries drew unusually high voter turnout shortly after the high-profile Senate election, which political scientists took as a strong indicator of voter interest and momentum come November.
“If you’ve ever been to any type of rally or ‘get out the vote’ effort, you know that you’ll hear politicians say it specifically, that ‘this is the most important election of our lifetime,’” Schatzline told attendees Saturday. “The reality is, every time we say that, we mean it.”
Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline speaks at a May 9 For Liberty & Justice event. Schatzline founded the nonprofit in 2021. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)
Speakers during the event framed the primary runoffs and following midterms as a spiritual battle, urging attendees to support candidates with biblical values.
Half of the battle is showing up, Mayes Middleton said. Texas voters need to elect “principled Christian conservatives who do not waver,” in their faith or political stance, he added.
“If we don’t show up to vote, it will destroy our state and destroy this entire country,” the state senator from Galveston said.
In March, Middleton earned nearly 40% of votes statewide and about 46% in Tarrant during the four-way race to win the nomination for attorney general. He faces U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Fredericksburg, in the runoff.
Rittenhouse used the president and Paxton as examples of candidates who “fight for America.”
“I see the headlines every day of President Trump getting attacked, but he doesn’t stop fighting,” Rittenhouse said. “Those are the leaders we should aspire to elect when we go to vote, who is going to put America first and who is going to help save this country.”
In the primary race for the GOP nomination for U.S. senator, 45% of Tarrant voters favored Paxton’s opponent, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, while 38% chose Paxton. Statewide, each candidate won about 41% of votes.
There’s a lot of division in the Republican Party, Sheets, the railroad commissioner candidate, said, adding that voters need to be united regardless of which GOP candidates win their races.
Sheets won his primary race against incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller with about 53% of statewide votes and nearly 58% in Tarrant.
“Once the runoffs are done, whether it’s your guy or not your guy, get behind whoever the nominees are, and let’s go in together,” Sheets said.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/11/republican-officials-urge-unity-voter-mobilization-in-tarrant-ahead-of-primary-runoffs/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=540108&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/11/republican-officials-urge-unity-voter-mobilization-in-tarrant-ahead-of-primary-runoffs/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>