“It wasn’t my performance,” Herbst said. “It was me.” Jess Herbst thought she had a good shot of becoming the first openly transgender mayor to be elected in Texas on Saturday. She’d already served in the post for two years — a first in its own right — after the sudden death of the town’s former mayor. And she’d done things like re-establish the planning and zoning board and push for more law enforcement funding in the North Texas town of New Hope, population roughly 700. But after a bruising campaign, she lost, coming in third in a contest of...