One might wonder how Adrienne Quinn Martin, a hairdresser, former belly dancer, mother of two and long-ago brand girl for a liquor distributor, a woman who celebrated her husband’s birthday on TikTok by swaying against him while listening to Al Green, became the lone-elected Democrat in one of the reddest towns in Texas.
“Oh,” Martin says, “I’ve had lives.”
Fluent in social media, she is an array of personas: a hard to quantify free-spirit, who in one instant can offer fashion tips (“I’m having a Britney moment”) and, in another, analyze voter registration data. She is a fierce political operative, a guileless influencer and a relentless voice against the far right in this Christian, white, cattle-talking town of about 12,600.
Martin washes Rose Simpson’s hair at Four Thirteen Salon in Granbury, Texas.
“Wait,” she said, when asked to call up a Twitter post about a constable who once had ties to the militant Proud Boys. “I have that.”
Click, scroll, click.
“Here it is,” she said. “I have, like, 33,000 screenshots.”
She smiled and swiped through more images on her phone.
To the dismay of many here, Martin helped organize a Black Lives Matter protest and welcomed drag queens to town for an HBO series. She caused a stir two years ago when she attended a meeting of the Granbury Independent School Board and condemned conservatives who “rant and rave” about banning books on sexuality and LGBTQ+ themes. Her subsequent video post has been viewed millions of times.