The frontrunner in the Democrat runoff is facing mounting criticism from the party’s establishment. In the Republican race the decided primary deeply fractured party unity.
The Democrat?
Sonya Jones is the clear frontrunner in the Democratic runoff for Fort Bend County Clerk coming in with 37.37% or 26,676 votes. Jones outpaced her closest competitor, Maria T. Jackson by over 10,000 votes but failed to hit the 50% threshold needed for an outright win.
When asked why she thought she was so successful in the primary, Jones did not elaborate, “We did a number of things. It’s kind of like a football game per se, you don’t want to give out your game plan. We used consistent technology, the same technology I would implement in the county clerk’s office to modernize it and make it more efficient.”
Jackson and Jones face off in the May runoff but whether Jones will find continued success remains to be seen. In a recent social media post, it appears she has set herself back with party insiders. She also faces accusations of not being a real Democrat. Fort Bend Indivisible, a local group of grassroots organizers working to combat authoritarianism in the United States, put out a statement condemning Jones’ candidacy this week.
Jones, a former FBISD Trustee, was endorsed in 2023 by Moms for Liberty, a conservative group who target school board races. She also appears to have accepted an endorsement by the group, Urban Conservatives United. She left her FBISD board position before her tenure was complete.
Jones appears to have taken comments made about literature distribution at a poll site and ramped up racial tensions in response. When a Facebook user asked Precinct 4 Commissioner candidate Nabil Shike, why he was handing out Jones’ pamphlets at the polls and suggesting Jones was scratching his back and he was scratching hers, Jones accused the Facebook user of calling her a “whore” and implied the user’s criticism was racially motivated, “Pay attention to the demographics of those who are commenting,” Jones noted.
She later went on to make two separate Facebook posts, one alleging “racially motivated hatred” and another stating, “It is disheartening to see that a black female political candidate is being called a “whore” by a non-black female precinct chair.” Jones then went on to screenshot and send the messages to Fort Bend County Democratic Chair Jennifer Cantu. She was ultimately unhappy with Cantu’s response highlighting the TDP’s parliamentary rules on the issue.
The Fort Bend Falcon does not see where the word whore was ever used by the precinct chair, and the claims of racism appear to only be coming from Jones.
Longtime members of the party criticized her word choice and racial labeling in responses to her Facebook posts. Jones did not respond and turned off comments.
The Fort Bend Falcon asked Jones if she would be successful in the runoff and whether she was finding support from the democratic establishment. Jones said, “I most definitely will come out ahead of Maria. As far as establishment support, that’s not my focus right now. My focus is continued voter outreach and just doing what I was doing before.”
Her Opponent
Maria T. Jackson is focusing on her, “leadership, experience, and integrity” in the runoff race for Fort Bend County Clerk. Jackson spent 18 years on the bench in Harris County first as an appointed Municipal Court Judge, she was then elected to the 339th State District Court where she presided over serious felony offenses running the gamut from low-level drug offenses to capital murder.
Jackson is hoping voters can see her record of transparency and efficiency in the justice system and how that will transfer to a position, “responsible for protecting the official records of an entire county. My focus is on bringing professionalism, accountability and modernisation to the Fort Bend County Clerk’s Office while safeguarding the integrity of those records.”
Jackson and Jones face off in the May 28th runoff. Early voting in the race begins May 18th. The winner will take on Tamara McFarlane in November.
Republican Rumblings
In Fort Bend County the local GOP usually does a better job at keeping party division in house compared with the Democrats. The Tamara McFarlane and J.J. Clemence race proved to be an exception. It also garnered another exception: Covering Katy’s first candidate endorsement in its 15-year history.
McFarlane filed her paperwork to run for Fort Bend County Clerk in September of 2025 and announced October 3rd. Clemence entered the race in early December. Party insiders intimated Clemence was urged to enter the race by some who felt McFarlane was not an ideal candidate.
McFarlane said she didn’t comply and was punished for it. “I encountered bullying from the GOP establishment and their dark tactics of pay-to-play voter guides and the media.”
The race began garnering major press attention in February with Katy Christian Magazine and Covering Katy covering McFarlane’s claims that her opponent was an active member of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).
The Fort Bend Falcon asked McFarlane if she regretted calling Clemence a foreign asset and a member of the CCP. McFarlane says the Asian community within Fort Bend was trying to sound the alarm long before she did. “I warned Congressman Nehls in December of 2025 that Clemence was a member of the CCP. December 7th is when I received the article from a Chinese American in Fort Bend County and then another one from a Taiwanese American who then disclosed to me she tried to tell Congressman Nehls two to three years ago that J.J. was not who you should be hiring for Asian outreach. I sent a message to Congressman Nehls on December 7th and I never heard back from him.”
Nehls endorsed Clemence in the race and told Katy Christian Magazine: “We send all the information to the U.S. Capitol Police, and they conduct a background check,” Nehls said. “If there are any concerns, they notify the chief of staff or me. A background check would have been conducted on J.J. Clemence.” Nehls described the allegation as “a horrible attack on an honorable lady” and said, “I support her 110 percent.”
McFarlane says Nehls isn’t being truthful, “I really don’t know what is going on with him because you are either embarrassed that you made a mistake or you are involved in something. It’s also known that they don’t vet district staff thoroughly, he said the U.S. Capitol Police vetted her. That is not true. Then he said the FBI vetted her. I am like, fine, show me a report, show me something.”
The Fort Bend Falcon reached out to Congressman Nehls for comment multiple times but did not receive a response.
McFarlane said she sat on the issue for a while but then more information was sent to her from groups like Vermilion China, an organization focused on exposing and combating the influence of the Chinese Communist Party. McFarlane took the information and made it central to her campaigning. Signs were placed at polling stations claiming Clemence and KP George brought Chinese Communist Party officials to Fort Bend County. Doctored images of Clemence in front of the Chinese flag were shared on McFarlane’s social media and text messages were sent to Republican voters warning them not to “let foreign infiltrators into the County Clerk’s office – or onto your official records.”
The Fort Bend Falcon asked Covering Katy Editor, Dennis Spellman why he felt the need to endorse in this election when he had never done so before. “What Tamara McFarlane did to J.J. Clemence was not politics — it was character assassination. McFarlane took photographs of Clemence doing her job for two U.S. congressmen and told voters they were evidence of being a Chinese spy. Those lies did not disappear on election night. They are on the internet permanently. Every employer, every friend, every neighbor, every stranger who searches J.J. Clemence’s name will find them.”
McFarlane says she has been the victim of fake news. “This publisher Dennis Spellman works for the government. He is a taxpayer-funded propagandist.”
Spellman responded, “These are the kinds of lies that she constantly spreads. Just because I work for the government doesn’t mean they are funding Covering Katy News. Everybody has to have a full-time job. Anyone can file a freedom of information request and find out she is lying. Covering Katy receives no funding from Fort Bend County.”
Fort Bend County Treasurer Bill Rickert said he also felt a duty to speak up. “I normally stay out of Republican primary elections. As the county’s treasurer, my responsibility is to focus on the work taxpayers elected me to do, not to referee internal party contests. But this situation was impossible to ignore.
The attacks launched against J.J. Clemence were so extreme and so irresponsible that I chose to get involved. J.J. Clemence is a proud American citizen who happens to be of Chinese descent, and attempting to cast suspicion on someone’s loyalty to this country based on their heritage is wrong. That kind of rhetoric has no place in Fort Bend County or in the Republican Party.”
Clemence responded to McFarlane’s accusations in January calling them baseless, “I have never been a member of the CCP, nor am I am instrument of the Chinese government. These accusations are the desperate tactics of a failing campaign from an opponent whose playbook is to divide our community rather than unite it.”
Despite having been appointed twice to state committees by Governor Abbott, garnering a whole host of endorsements including two Congressmen and the current Fort Bend County Clerk, J.J. Clemence was unable to clinch the nomination. Dennis Spellman of Covering Katy said McFarlane’s attacks on Clemence were successful with Republican primary voters. “Unfortunately, the lies had been out there for weeks, people’s fears got the best of them, and the negative campaign worked.”
McFarlane says it is her versus the establishment. “I have diverse support from people of all backgrounds who aren’t political insiders and who want honest qualified people serving in our local government.”
McFarlane will face either Sonya Jones or Maria T. Jackson in November. McFarlane believes she will have an easier time beating Jones and considers Jackson to be the more “qualified candidate based on merit.”