Democrats broke a losing streak that stretched back more than a quarter-century in Kaufman County, flipping both contested seats in Precinct 2 on Tuesday. Marcus Henderson unseated Republican incumbent Amy M. Tarno in the race for Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace, while Shree Henderson defeated Republican incumbent Skeet Phillips for the precinct's county commissioner seat.
According to inForney.com, the results mark the first Kaufman County local-election victories for Democrats in the 21st century. Marcus Henderson took the Justice of the Peace race with 9,572 votes to Tarno's 8,279, a 1,293-vote margin that translated to 53.62 percent of the vote against her 46.38 percent, out of 17,851 ballots cast in that race, per the same report.
In the commissioner's race, Shree Henderson collected 9,692 votes against Phillips' 8,083, winning by 1,609 votes — a 54.53 to 45.47 percent split across 17,775 total ballots, the outlet's figures show. That gives her a seat on the Kaufman County Commissioners Court, a body that handles county infrastructure, budget allocation, and public services, the report notes.
What the Flipped Offices Actually Do
Marcus Henderson will now preside over the Precinct 2 Justice Court. Per Kaufman County's own description of the post, the Justice of the Peace presides over civil, criminal, and traffic trials and reads juvenile and adult magistrate warnings — duties that also include managing warrants and inquests, according to the county's official rundown of the office.
The county's page for the precinct also lays out a practical detail for residents who end up in that courtroom: paying a citation online counts as a no-contest plea and forfeits the right to a jury trial, the county notes. Meanwhile, a Dallas-area election results page maintained by dallasnews.com includes its own section tracking the Kaufman County Commissioner, Precinct No. 2 race, with the outlet noting that results beyond most federal and statewide contests are gathered directly from local election departments.
A Precinct Covering Forney and Part of Heath
Precinct 2 spans the Forney area and a portion of Heath, according to inForney's early-voting coverage of the race. That same early-voting reporting found Democratic voters turning out in higher numbers than Republicans in the precinct ahead of Tuesday's results.
The flips land in a county that has been growing fast. The Dallas Business Journal reported that Kaufman County's population jumped 5 percent, ranking it first in Texas and third nationwide for population growth by percentage change, according to the paper's analysis. A separate estimate from kxan.com found the county grew 5.67 percent between July 2024 and July 2025, placing it among the nation's 10 fastest-growing counties.
Whether that growth played any role in Tuesday's outcome is not something the available reporting addresses. What is documented is the scale of the shift: two incumbents out, two newcomers in, and a drought that had lasted a quarter-century now over in Kaufman County's Precinct 2.
