State legislative races tend to get less attention than Congressional races. Fewer candidates, less money, very little news coverage. That’s probably going to be less true this year, as both parties are going to expend a lot of effort and resources to gain or maintain control of the State House, but for now at least these races are mostly beneath the radar. Here’s a look at what’s happening in districts in and around Houston.
Rep. Rick Miller – HD26
Sarah DeMerchant – HD26
Rep. John Zerwas (PAC) – HD28
Elizabeth Markowitz – HD28
Rep. Ed Thompson (PAC) – HD29
Rep. Phil Stephenson – HD85
Rep. Sam Harless – HD126
Natali Hurtado – HD126
Rep. Gina Calanni – HD132
Rep. Sarah Davis – HD134
Ann Johnson – HD134
Ruby Powers – HD134
Rep. Jon Rosenthal – HD135
Rep. Dwayne Bohac – HD138
Akilah Bacy – HD138
Josh Wallenstein – HD138
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
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026 Miller 19,890 27,815 0 7,076
026 DeMerchant 10,760 5,509 0 5,294
028 Zerwas 20,168 192,575 0 17,480
028 Markowitz 18,118 5,406 0 6,457
029 Thompson 2,000 27,236 0 396,460
085 Stephenson 6,177 11,535 24,997 7,077
126 Harless 5,000 12,540 20,000 40,952
126 Hurtado 350 477 0 318
132 Calanni 8,791 17,470 0 15,328
134 Davis 24,821 36,796 0 202,672
134 Johnson 130,645 3,658 500 119,422
134 Powers 22,044 1,625 0 19,282
135 Rosenthal 9,568 37,169 1,075 13,111
138 Bohac 27,390 58,724 0 28,261
138 Bacy 21,492 2,628 0 20,683
138 Wallenstein 54,164 7,445 10,000 53,141
As you may surmise, I started writing this before Rep. John Zerwas announced his retirement. He’s actually leaving on September 30, meaning there will be a special election to fill out the remainder of his term. Things will change for that district as people line up for the special, which will have to be after November since there won’t be time for it by then, and as Republicans jump in for next year. I had looked at Zerwas’ report before his announcement and was curious about his spending during this period. Now it all makes sense.
Legislators cannot raise money during the session, and as such there’s usually a spike of activity right after it. Not much evidence for it in these totals, though. Ed Thompson and Sarah Davis have healthy totals, as did Zerwas before his clearance spending, but I’m a little surprised that the likes of Rick Miller and Dwayne Bohac don’t have more in the kitty. Of course, Thompson was unopposed in 2018, and Davis may as well have been, so they didn’t need to spend much going into this year, unlike Miller and Bohac. I feel pretty confident saying that all of them, as well as freshmen Gina Calanni and Jon Rosenthal, will sport much bigger totals in the January reports.
Beyond that, the big numbers belong to Ann Johnson, taking a second crack at HD134, and Josh Wallenstein in HD138. Johnson was the last Dem to make a serious run against Davis in 2012, and while HD134 has always looked purple, the underlying numbers plus Davis’ moderate reputation always made it look more like a mirage to me. But there was a shift in 2016, and even more so in 2018, so that plus the overall closeness of the Lege catapulted this one back up the target list. I expect Ruby Powers to post some good numbers as well going forward. Same for HD138, which came agonizingly close to flipping last year. Wallenstein got off to a strong start, but I expect Akilah Bacy to be in there as well.
Finally, the incumbents who don’t have opponents as of this report should not rest easy, as these are all competitive districts. Please note, it’s entirely possible I’ve missed someone, as there’s not a way that I could find to search by office on the TEC reporting page. With all of the other entities – city of Houston, HISD, HCC, Harris County, the FEC for federal races – you can easily see everyone who’s filed, and I’ve used that to discover candidates I’d not known about before. Not so much with the TEC. So if you know more than I do about who’s running in these districts, please leave a comment and enlighten me.
Some other recent filings
Dist 126 – Edward Huber filed CTA 7/29
Dist 132 – Angelica Garcia filed CTA 7/18
Of course, the data in the CTA file is notoriously bad.
HD-26: Rish Oberoi (D) raised $53,190, spent $6,559, and has $46,631 cash on hand. He didn’t announce he was running until May, so this is only for 2 months, as opposed to Sarah DeMerchant’s report which covers the whole 6 month period.