Here are the rest of the winners from yesterday:
Controller: Chris Brown
At Large #1: Mike Knox
At Large #2: CM David Robinson
At Large #4: Amanda Edwards
At Large #5: CM Jack Christie
District F: Steve Le
District H: Karla Cisneros
District J: CM Mike Laster
HISD II: Rhonda Skillern-Jones
HISD III: Manuel Rodriguez
Here are the Chron stories for the Council/Controller and HISD races. A couple of stray thoughts:
– Chris Brown and David Robinson are to me the big winners of the make-it-partisan strategy that was employed. I was especially worried about Robinson, because an elevated level of African-American turnout would not necessarily favor him. But both won Harris County, by larger margins than Turner (15,000 votes for Robinson, 9,000 for Brown), and both won Fort Bend, so I have to think that the message about who was the Democrat got through.
– That said, I strongly suspect that undervoting was a key in these races, and also in the AL1 race. Brown won early voting by about the same margin as Turner did, but then also won on Election Day. Robinson led early voting by a smaller margin than Turner, mostly on the strength of absentee ballots. He then dominated Election Day. On the flipside, Georgia Provost trailed in early voting, losing in absentee ballots while barely leading the in person early vote. Basically, she collected 10,000 fewer in person early votes than Turner did, while Mike Knox lost only 5,000 votes off of King’s total. This is something I plan to look into more closely when I get the precinct data.
– A lot was made before the election about King leading the vote in District C. It was a small lead, and a lot of District C voters went for Adrian Garcia, Steve Costello, and Chris Bell. If I had to guess right now, I’d say Turner won District C, but other races may be all over the place. King clearly got some crossovers, almost surely more than Turner did, but how many will be hard to tell. I really think the undervotes will tell a big part of the story.
– I’m sad to see CM Richard Nguyen lose, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Again, I’ll be interested to see what the precinct data says. After the Mayor’s race, this one had the lowest undervote rate, at 8.77%.
– Amanda Edwards’ and Karla Cisneros’ wins means that Council will have four women but only one Latino. I’m guessing that’s going to cause some angst.
– Here’s my guess at a whip count if and when another HERO comes up:
Likely Yeses – Robinson, Edwards, Davis, Cohen, Cisneros, Gallegos, Laster, Green
Likely Nos – Knox, Kubosh, Stardig, Martin, Le, Travis
Voted No originally, but maybe could be swung – Christie, Boykins
Counting Mayor Turner, a worst case vote would likely be 9-7 in favor. It would be nice to focus some effort on Christie and Boykins and maybe get that to 10-6 or 11-5. It’s a small thing, but I’d hate to give the other side the talking point that HERO 2.0 was less popular on Council than the original was. If it’s not possible to move that needle, then aiming to take a couple of seats to make up the difference and trying again after 2019 might be the best course of action. Christie’s term will be up, while Mike Knox and Steve Le could be targeted. By the same token, Jerry Davis, Ellen Cohen, and Mike Laster will also be termed out, and those seats would need to be defended, so this strategy has some risk as well. I’m just thinking out loud here. Point being, it’s never too early to start thinking about this sort of thing.
Anyway. Congratulations to all the winners. May you all fulfill your promises to make Houston a better place.
I think the first thing that Mayor elect Turner should bring up when he becomes Mayor is another equal rights ordinance. Clearly that is the most important thing affecting the City of Houston. We need another long and hard debate. We need to be able to identify all the Haters in the City and maybe pass an ordinance requiring everyone who votes against to wear a capital H.
Really I am serious about this. Clearly the most important thing hanging over everyone’s head.
On a more personal note I am happy that Turner won. I considered both candidates to be very qualified to be Mayor. I first supported Mayor Turner Financially along time ago.
Kuffner, why didn’t you place CM Stardig on the HERO swing list?
Just curious.
One can only hope all of our new and current elected officials will be able to stop the bleeding that Houston is experiencing right now with the economy, infrastructure, & social issues.
Onr can only hope that Sylvester will do a better job at governing the city as a whole than he has in representing Acres Homes over the last 10 plus years, since the area continues to struggle with employment, housing, and employment. Perhaps now that he has hands on say on city matters he can bring much needed improvement not only in that area but accross the city. It is nerve-wracking because if a person who is not able to take care of his home than what does that say about the way they will take care of the village? One can only hope that these concerns go away once he fully takes office.
Last night I was watching his victory speech and I don’t recall him mentioning Hero directly. One needs to look that while Sylvester may have won it is Churches around his current district that played, and my best guess will be, that will continue to play a role of how far HERO will go on the 2nd time around. Not the big Churches but the little ones that are scattered around in mostly minority communities. It will be interesting to see how Sylvester convinces them to vote for it.
Also Amanda Edwards, & Jerry Davis will always vote with Sylvester since they are from Acres Homes. So maybe there is some good things coming for the area & Houston.
I was hoping that Provost would win because her and Boykins are not afraid to go against the grain in a manner that is fair and balanced and still be Democrats.
Depending on how a new antidiscrimination ordinance is worded, I can imagine Stardig, Le, Knox, and Martin might support it. I still think the better strategy would be to break apart public accommodations from the employment, housing, contracting issues and pass several separate ordinances on specific non-discrimination topics.
Here’s a novel idea for HERO…
Why doesn’t Houston city council just pass the same ordinance that Austin, Fort Worth or Dallas passed?
And be done with it.
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