FORT WORTH (Diya TV) — Texas district court judge Mike Sinha fell short in his March 1 bid for reelection to the bench against opponent Patricia Baca Bennett. A highly contested election, the record turnout saw more than 200,000 ballots cast.
Bennett received 57 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, with the Indian-American Sinha receiving just 43 percent. There are no Democrats running in the election, meaning the seat has all but been secured for Bennett.
Never short the dramatics of political theater, the election was filled with tumultuous amounts of smear campaigns against the incumbent Sinha. An anonymous person began a social media campaign against the judge, titled, “Sinha Muslim.” The five paragraph message said the judge, who was appointed by Texas governor Rick Perry in 2010, “wants to bring Sharia … into our family courts” and used “Muslim poll workers.”
Bennett replied to the smear campaign via her Facebook page, writing, My opponent is a Christian with a pretty amazing Christian walk. … I would never condone disparaging another religion,” adding she is having the incident investigated.
Sinha was the sole incumbent judge on the March 1 ticket who did not win reelection.
“I think, unfortunately, my last name was an issue,” Sinha told the Star-Telegram without blaming Bennett. With Donald Trump voters thronging the polls, Sinha said his poll workers and family heard the same line repeatedly: “You’re a Muslim.”
“We were called all kinds of names,” added Sinha.
Sinha is a first-generation American, whose father immigrated stateside from Bengal, India in 1952.
