I’m going to take a look at the five At Large Council races as well, since all of them have interesting things to say about what happened. First up is At Large #1, where incumbent Mike Knox will face first time candidate Raj Salhotra in December.
Dist Knox Provost Raj YNF Bmon
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A 7,587 1,465 2,482 2,730 1,108
B 1,952 5,515 1,856 3,485 2,473
C 14,652 2,129 15,043 4,713 1,547
D 3,148 7,214 3,719 4,185 4,266
E 13,721 1,711 3,257 3,140 1,942
F 3,405 1,116 1,522 2,119 1,004
G 18,030 1,836 5,034 2,845 1,585
H 2,869 1,352 3,578 5,080 847
I 1,982 1,323 2,329 4,381 781
J 2,300 685 1,487 1,393 631
K 4,237 3,285 4,396 2,985 2,798
A 49.36% 9.53% 16.15% 17.76% 7.21%
B 12.77% 36.09% 12.15% 22.81% 16.18%
C 38.47% 5.59% 39.50% 12.38% 4.06%
D 13.97% 32.02% 16.51% 18.57% 18.93%
E 57.72% 7.20% 13.70% 13.21% 8.17%
F 37.15% 12.18% 16.60% 23.12% 10.95%
G 61.47% 6.26% 17.16% 9.70% 5.40%
H 20.90% 9.85% 26.07% 37.01% 6.17%
I 18.36% 12.25% 21.57% 40.58% 7.23%
J 35.41% 10.54% 22.89% 21.44% 9.71%
K 23.94% 18.56% 24.83% 16.86% 15.81%
A couple of big-picture items before we get into the district numbers. Knox got 36.51% of the Harris County vote in 2019. He was the only Republican candidate in the race this year. He got 24.75% in 2015, but Griff Griffin was also in that race, and the two of them combined for 37.65% of the vote. The two Republican Mayoral candidates (Buzbee and King) combined for 42.79% of the vote this year. This is all very fuzzy and I wouldn’t put too much stock in it, I’m just trying to get a (very) rough idea of the overall Republican vote in the city.
At Large races are notorious for having a high undervote rate, largely because the candidates are usually not well known to most voters. In this case, At Large #1 had the lowest undervote rate of any of the At Large races, at 17.65%. The others ranged from 21.05% to 23.00%. By contrast, the Mayor’s race had an undervote rate of 1.59%. One possible reason for this is that four of the five At Large #1 contestants had been in at least one race before, and the fifth raised enough money to do some mailers.
Mike Knox showed strength where you’d expect him to, in Districts A, E, and G, and he did pretty well in C, F, and J. If he can repeat that kind of performance in the runoff, he can win. Like Tony Buzbee, he would have preferred for there to be runoffs in E and G as well, but unlike Buzbee he doesn’t have a ton of money to throw around to generate turnout for himself. The risk for him is that Buzbee will go down with a whimper and drag him and the other Republican runoff candidates as well.
Raj Salhotra carried Districts C and K, both by small amounts. He did pretty well for a first time candidate, but he has his work cut out for him. He has about a 29K deficit to overcome, and he has to win a lot of votes in districts like B and D despite having Georgia Provost and Larry Blackmon endorse Knox in the runoff. Honestly, I’d probably put whatever money he has into mailers and robocalls tying Knox to Buzbee and Trump, and hope for the best. Getting those Democrats who have been endorsing Mayor Turner to speak up on his behalf would help, too.
I admit, I expected Georgia Provost to be Salhotra’s main competition for the second runoff slot. She’s run before, she made the runoff in 2015, and she starts with a base of support. But she doesn’t raise money, and while she obviously does well in the African-American districts, she doesn’t do much more than just split that vote with the other African-American candidate on the ballot. In fact, she did better in 2015 with Chris Oliver also in the race than she did this year with Larry Blackmon, who is just a perennial candidate. You could muster up an argument that Blackmon cost her a shot at the runoff, as her total plus his would have outscored Salhotra, but the presence of Oliver in 2015 didn’t hold her back.
I was a little surprised to see Yolanda Navarro Flores do as well as she did. She was last on a ballot in 2013, and had not won races other than for HCC Trustee. She entered late and raised no money, but as you can see she did very well in H and I, she outpaced Provost everywhere except B, D, and K, and outpaced Salhotra everywhere except C, E, G, and K. An earlier entry and some actual fundraising, and she could still be in this race.
I’ll be looking at the rest of the races over the next few days. Let me know what you think.