Let's take a look at what happened yesterday, starting with the Houston elections. Greg has a slightly early but essentially accurate picture of the city elections, while final results for Harris County can be found here. (Yes, the layout of that page sucks. Send your complaints to Beverly Kaufman.) There's a wee bit of Houston in Fort Bend County so the final official tally will be a little off from that, but it's not important right now.

Anyway, Mayor White cracked the 90% mark, which makes my projection of 82% look hopelessly pessimistic now. I'm fascinated that the non-White votes were not more or less evenly distributed among his token opponents. Is Gladys House's 4.18%, nearly double that of her next closest rival, a testament to something? You could probably wring a master's thesis out of that one.

All ten City Council incumbents were easily reelected, with District F's MJ Khan getting the lowest percentage at 69.31%. District I's Carol Alvarado, the subject of some controversy over the status of her UH graduation, was the big winner with over 79% of the tally. That's got to be sweet for her.

Three of the four open seats will head to runoffs. Peter Brown got a slight majority in At Large #1 to win there outright. In At Large #2, it'll be Sue Lovell versus Jay Aiyer, while Felicia Galloway-Hall and Jarvis Johnson will battle in District B, and Anne Clutterbuck and George Hittner survived the crowded field in District C. I have no opinion on the two district seats, but I'll note with some pleasure that two strong Democratic candidates combined for over 58% of the vote in At Large #2. I see that runoff having some parallels to the San Antonio mayoral runoff from June, in that supporters of the losing candidates will likely have a strong preference for one of the contenders. As Phil Hardberger overcame Julian Castro's lead with big support from Carroll Schubert's voters, I see Jay Aiyer being in a good position to pick up those who favored Poli Acosta and John Elford. If those folks stay home, I think Lovell wins; if not, I think Aiyer wins. Either way, it should make for an interesting dynamic.

The race for HD143 will also go to a runoff as Ana Hernandez and Laura Salinas led the pack. The one contested HCC Board of Trustees election was won easily by Richard Schecter.

Finally, both HISD races will have runoffs. Incumbent Larry Marshall will go against challenger Daisy Maura in HISD9, while Natasha Kamrani got nearly 40% of the vote to lead in HISD1. She'll go against Anne Flores Santiago, who nipped Richard Cantu by 63 votes for second place.

I'll have more to say about the runoff races, especially the two in which I'll be casting a vote, later. For now, congratulations to all the winners.

UPDATE: Here are the final tallies.