Wells Jr. (1850–1923), for three decades a judge and Democratic Party political boss in South Texas.

The Jim Wells County Democratic Party has maintained its influence in the county despite massive demographic changes due to civil rights, the collapse of Jim Crow and poll taxes, and mass immigration from Mexico.

[10] The only Republicans to win the county in presidential elections since its creation are Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, Richard Nixon in his 1972 landslide and Donald Trump in 2020.

Despite this shift, the Democratic nominee won at least 53.77 percent of the county's vote in every presidential election from 1976 through 2016.

In 2020, the county ended its streak of Democratic victories when it was won by Donald Trump by a 10% margin.

[12] In the same election, Democrat Beto O'Rourke won the county in the Senate contest with 53.85% of the vote.

[13] Jim Wells County is known as the home of the "Box 13 scandal", the infamous ballot box that gave Lyndon Baines Johnson an 87-vote edge out of 988,295 cast over popular former governor Coke Stevenson in the Democratic primary election.