Meet The Candidates: TJ Ware For Texas Congressional District 24

This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next twelve months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is TJ Ware?

TJ Ware grew up in a blue-collar Fort Worth family, was on job sites at 14, graduated high school at 16, and was working in the US Attorney’s Office before he even turned 17. He was there on 9/11, but inside the Justice Department as the country changed around him. Within months, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Ware spent his 18th birthday at basic training and deployed to Iraq shortly after getting married. His unit held the line in western Iraq during some of the heaviest rocket and mortar attacks of the insurgency. Coming home was its own battle, and he’s open about that. He credits the Dallas VA with saving his life and has built much of his political worldview around the idea that if the country asks people to go to war, it owes them genuine care when they come home.

After the Marines, Ware used the GI Bill to become a licensed pilot, worked with nonprofit and missionary groups, and helped build small businesses across multiple states. His most defining chapter, though, came in the roofing and insurance world, where he witnessed corporate abuse of homeowners after natural disasters. Ware became a national advocate for policyholders, advising industry associations, meeting with attorneys general, and pushing for consumer-first reforms. He also co-founded a North Texas data company serving the roofing and insurance sectors.

At home, Ware and his wife are raising ten children, ages three to twenty-one, and he wears that as part of his political identity. He’s running because he sees the country’s cracks from the ground level. And he believes the fight for democracy, honesty in government, and economic fairness is personal, because his kids, and everyone else’s, will inherit whatever we fail to fix.

The district.

(Yes, this is the new map.) TX24 is the classic “between Dallas and Fort Worth” suburban seat. It hugs the Dallas–Tarrant county line and takes in places like Irving, Coppell, Farmers Branch, Carrollton, Grapevine, Bedford, Hurst, Euless, Colleyville, Southlake, Keller, Roanoke, the Park Cities, and chunks of north Fort Worth.