One of the biggest stories of this year’s midterm elections has been the shift among Hispanic voters in South Florida and South Texas toward the Republican Party. But a more impressive gauge of the GOP’s new strength may come in an unsuspecting place—Harris County, Texas, which sits in the eastern part of the state and encompasses most of Houston.

At 4.7 million people, Harris County is the third most populous county in the U.S. It’s also one of the most diverse. According to recent census numbers, its population is 44% Hispanic, 27% white, 20% African-American and 7% Asian.

Harris County has been a Democratic stronghold for years.

Donald Trump

won shy of 42% in 2016 and only 43% in 2020. No Republican has been elected to a countywide office since 2014. But things may get interesting this November.

Democrat

Lina Hidalgo,

a Colombian immigrant, was only 27 when she defeated a Republican incumbent to become county judge in 2018. That isn’t primarily a judicial post in Texas: Ms. Hidalgo serves as the county’s chief executive, in charge of an annual budget of nearly $4 billion.

Progressives were elated with Ms. Hidalgo’s election, which ushered in a 3-2 Democratic majority on the Commissioners Court, the county’s legislative body. Many in the national press, from MSNBC to Politico, compared Ms. Hidalgo to New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

That comparison has been apt. Spending has soared in Harris County since 2018, as Ms. Hidalgo has pushed programs such as an early-childhood education initiative and a legal defense fund for immigrants. She’s also won progressive plaudits over criminal justice. In 2019 Ms. Hidalgo promptly settled a lawsuit over the county’s bail system, replacing it with one in which roughly 85% of those arrested on misdemeanors are given cash-free release with no pretrial detention.

Then Covid-19 hit, and Ms. Hidalgo imposed one of the most draconian enforcement regimes of any major city in the U.S., including a fine of up to $1,000 for failing to wear a mask in public. A draft version of the policy had proposed up to 180 days in jail for face-mask violations.

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Ms. Hidalgo’s mandate that police officers use scarce resources to enforce her order sent the Houston Police Officers’ Union into orbit. “We do not have time to be pawns in Hidalgo’s game of attempting to control the actions of law abiding, tax paying individuals of our community,” the union said in an April 2020 statement.

The consequences have been on full display, especially in Houston, which saw a surge in violent crime during the pandemic. County criminal courts now face a backlog of around 41,000 pending cases owing to a lengthy pause on in-person trials. Murder cases routinely take three to five years to go to trial.

District Attorney

Kim Ogg,

a Democrat, says Ms. Hidalgo’s bail reform is “a driving factor in the crime crisis gripping our community” and that her own office lacks the resources to track down and punish those who miss a trial date.

The two Democrats have also sparred over ethics concerns. Ms. Ogg obtained indictments against three of Ms. Hidalgo’s top staffers in April, charging that they improperly awarded an $11 million Covid-19 outreach contract to a political consulting firm headed by a Democratic data-mining expert. The defendants maintain their innocence and two of them have filed motions seeking to remove Ms. Ogg from the case. Ms. Hidalgo told Houston Public Media in May that the indictments are part of a political vendetta against her and that she expects to be targeted next.

She may not be wrong about the latter. One reason to think so is a 2021 text message obtained by the Texas Rangers, which shows Ms. Hidalgo’s chief of staff,

Alex Triantaphyllis,

responding to questions about why his boss changed the Covid contract’s scope. “Probably good for campaign purposes in her mind,” Mr. Triantaphyllis wrote. “But anyway, if she has some intricate picture in her head, I say F it and let her define it.”

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Ms. Hidalgo has had other personnel failures. In April,

Isabel Longoria

was forced by public pressure to resign as Harris County elections administrator after accidentally leaving 10,000 ballots out of the preliminary March primary results.

All of this explains why Ms. Hidalgo is running scared in her re-election against Republican

Alexandra del Moral Mealer.

A graduate of both West Point and Harvard Law School, Ms. Mealer worked as an energy investment banker after serving as an Army captain in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011.

An Oct. 24. poll from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs showed Ms. Mealer leading Ms. Hidalgo, 47% to 45%. The same poll showed Republicans favored to take back control of the five-member Commissioners Court.

Ms. Hidalgo has reacted to Ms. Mealer’s challenge by importing celebrities such as

Jane Fonda

and Lin-Manuel Miranda for rallies. She’s also run nonstop ads accusing her opponent of supporting the state Legislature’s recent restrictions on abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, or around the sixth week of pregnancy. Ms. Mealer has declined to take a position on the policy, arguing the county has little practical authority on the matter.

If Ms. Mealer ousts Ms. Hidalgo, it will send two messages: First, that voters care about the quality of local governance. Second, that even urban Hispanics aren’t buying the solutions progressives are selling.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for National Review and a co-author of “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote.”

Journal Editorial Report: Once-safe Democratic seats are suddenly up for grabs. Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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