As a devoted watcher of trash tv, it should shock no one that I was a big fan of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. What should shock you is that Farrah Abraham— yes, that Farrah Abraham— decided to run for mayor of the City of Austin, Texas. She’s been in and out of the tabloids ever since her time on MTV, and is generally seen as any one of the following: a reality-TV villain, entrepreneur, spicy content creator, and a walking headline generator who is never too far removed from something scandalous. If you’ve ever learned too much about a stranger at a grocery store against your will, then you already know Farrah’s general vibe. For better or worse, she’s a reality TV star who has decided that dipping her toe into politics in Austin, TX is a good idea.
How did Farrah decide that was the journey? Glad you asked! She moved to Austin in 2013, and publicly says that she loves the city she’s called home for over a decade. She’s been there exactly long enough to complain about traffic unironically, and to feel personally victimized by rising rent costs, but I somehow doubt that she has a tamale lady who saves the last batch for her. Allegedly, Farrah decided that she “wants to help” the city she loves, and a reality star has famously won political office before, so she decided that running for mayor was the way to go.
She filed the paperwork to run for Austin mayor in 2026, stating her intentions to help the City of Austin, support creatives, entrepreneurs, and self-employed people, and fix city-level issues that she says are affecting residents. Her intent? Sincere. Her execution? Questionable. If you watched her like I did when she first rose to fame, you know that Farrah’s nothing if not ambitious, optimistic, and not too great at remembering smaller details. That last thing came back to bite her in the ass in front of a live audience.
TMZ was doing what they do, and invited Farrah to do a live interview, which is where she found out— on camera— that Austin’s mayoral race isn’t until 2028. She genuinely believed the race was later this year (we’re in 2026, in case you’ve been hibernating since December), and somehow NO ONE had corrected her assumption yet. Secondhand embarrassment, meet civic education, because if there’s one way you don’t want to find out that your election math is wrong on a very basic level, it’s live on TMZ. Clips circulated immediately as the internet did what it always does, and Farrah dropped out of the mayoral race.
But wait! There’s more! Farrah being Farrah, she couldn’t let a silly thing like “running for office in the wrong year” stop her. After ending her early-bird mayoral bid, she’s decided to refocus on the Austin City Council, District 5. District 5 covers parts of South and Southwest Austin, but more importantly— to Farrah, anyway— that election is this year. She’ll now be running for Austin City Council in November of 2026, which is a much more realistic political entry point for the former reality TV star. The seat she’s running for is still local to her, still civic-minded, but definitely a titch less “run the whole city before learning how it works.”
Is civic participation an important and good thing? Yes. I have to give her credit there, even though it got a little messy. Let’s be honest, plenty of politicians have won with worse résumés, and Farrah’s nothing if not committed to a cause… once someone else has clued her in to all of the finer details. Let’s hope that if she wins the seat she’s got her eye on, that someone else is in charge of calendar keeping. Austin politics can always use a little passion infusion, and Farrah’s one passionate person… who needs a planner.
