Suburban Mayor Beats Texas Governor,
TLR and Loaded Rival in Top Open Race
Capitol Inside
March 9, 2026
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Armin Mizani
Best Texas Open Race
Texas House - Republican
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Keller Republican Armin Mizani never really quit running for the Texas House after losing to outgoing State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione in the primary election in 2018 with only 37 percent of the vote. But after building his credentials and a significant local fan base as the mayor of the suburb he's led since the final month of the covid pandemic's first year in 2020, Mizani was ready to take a belated second shot at the House District 98 seat when he didn't have an incumbent as an obstacle on the primary ballot in 2026. And now he's track to lock it down in November after a double-digit win against a highly competitive foe who had Governor Greg Abbott on the pom poms, a record war chest and rampant Islamophobia on social media as weapons that appeared to relegate Mizani to the underdog role on paper before he beat Fred Tate by 10 points with 53 percent of the primary vote on Tuesday.
Mizani will face Democratic primary winner Cate Brennan in November in the first open race for the seat in the northeast Tarrant County district since 1992 when Democrats still ran Texas with Ann Richards as the governor.
But President Donald Trump won HD 98 with 62 percent of the vote in 2024 - so barring a blue wave of monstrous magnitude - Mizani will be a significant betting favorite in the general election as a result. Mizani in the meantime is the choice here in the category for best open race on the Capitol Inside all-star team for the Texas primary vote. No one did a better job of mixing aggressive offense with defense that was more critical than ever in light of a smear campaign on social media that he had to overcome after detractors loyal to Tate sought to tie him to terrorists by connecting dots to donors and the beneficiaries of their largess in other states.
Mizani hit the ground running with widespread support across HD 98 from fellow local officials on councils and school boards in the relatively affluent swath of suburbia on the northern edge of the Fort Worth where Grapevine, Keller and Southlake are the largest incorporated municipalities. Mizani rounded up endorsements from the state's most prominent conservative groups, 15 House Republicans and U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne in an overlapping district. The Keller mayor seemed to have all the boxes checked as a Republican candidate for the seat. . Except for one. Occupation.
Mizani is a personal injury attorney who plies his trade suing big insurance companies for damages for harm that stem from accidents their clients in the business sector have caused. After having its legislative agenda hijacked last year by Texas House Republicans in the same line of work as the HD 98 contender, the Texans for Lawsuit Reform decided that Mizani must be stopped no matter what the cost. The TLR PAC turned to Fred Tate of Colleyville to carry the torch against Mizani - and the group's largess accounted for $2 million out of almost $3 million that he rounded up as the leading fundraiser on the House battlefield for round one. TLR spent nearly $575,000 on the Tate campaign in the final week before the primary vote. Mizani was no slouch in the fundraising department - having ranked 4th on the money list for House races with contested House primaries after rounding up almost $1.7 million - a sum that included a $200,000 loan at the starting gate.
Beyond the promise of being heavily-armed, Tate was a formidable opponent on paper as a longtime activist who served a the Young Conservatives of Texas s. Tate's experience in the public sector included three appointments from Governor Greg Abbott to the Judicial Compensation Committee, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Trinity River Authority as the most recent in 2023. Tate was starting to look like the candidate to beat in HD 98 after Abbott endorsed his campaign, contributed $29,000 in February for advertising and appeared on his behalf in the district at events in the closing weeks of the race.
The major candidates in HD 98 directed record amounts of attention and money to setting the record straight while accusing the other of lying about them, their records in public service and what they're really thinking in between the lines of the spin. But Mizani faced the most delicate challenge with a smear campaign on social media that portrayed him as a Muslim sympathizer in sheep's clothes based on positions in the local leadership role and selective donations to his campaign. Mizani made a big deal about his faith and roots when the rumor mill was boiling over - pointing out that he's a Puerto Rican who worships at the Catholic church and even tried to ban Sharia law single-handedly in the suburb that he leads at the outset of the HD 98 competition late last year. Abbott has attempted to stoke the flames of anti-Islam anxiety with rhetoric and actions aimed at heading off a Muslim invasion that some right-wingers envision here. The rescue ride for Tate raised a lot of eyebrows as a consequence. But that didn't stop the candidate from trying to make nice with the governor immediately after he claimed the nomination in fairly comfortable fashion despite Abbott's concerted attempt to knock him out.
Coming to Capitol Inside: Best of the Texas primary election all-star selections with installments for incumbents, challengers and candidates in open races and more ...
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