Charlie Gearing, a North Texas attorney who grew up in the region, announced Thursday he is running for Congress.
Gearing is challenging Rep. Lance Gooden, a two-term Republican that has breezed through both his elections in his conservative, greater Dallas area district.
“It wasn’t easy for my grandfather to be a Southern Baptist minister who was run out of town after town because he preached and fought for desegregation,” Gearing said in his campaign launch. “Despite the difficulty, he knew it was the right thing to do. I’m going to run this campaign with those same values that my grandfather – my hero – instilled in me.”
Gearing supports expanding rural broadband access, better infrastructure, and commonsense background checks.
His opponent Gooden is a former Texas House lawmaker that has fit right at home with Texas’ Republican delegation to Washington. He is best known for objecting to the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania and Arizona and was also the only Republican to vote in favor of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (something he later admitted was an accident in a now-deleted tweet).
Gooden won reelection by 26 percentage points in 2020, although those historical margins may mean little in the face of upcoming redistricting. Gearing is one of the first 2022 candidates to announce before the new maps are drawn.
“From our electric grid to voting rights to accessible rural healthcare, Texas’ 5th Congressional District deserves a congressman who can roll up their sleeves and partner with anyone willing to do the hard work necessary to overcome these challenges,” Gearing said. “We will work every day to improve working Texans’ lives.”
Fernando covers Texas politics and government at the Texas Signal. Before joining the Signal, Fernando spent two years at the Houston Chronicle and previously interned at Houston’s NPR station News 88.7. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, and enjoys reading, highlighting things, and arguing on social media. You can follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email at fernando@texassignalarchive.com
