Tag Archives: Marty McVey

A few words about Lee Kaplan

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I mean, I dunno. During the early stages of a mayoral race, polls carry little significance and every candidate says they are organizing a diverse coalition of supporters. There often is only one indicator to differentiate contenders from also-rans: money. Fundraising enables … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Mayor’s race

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

I now have draft canvasses. You know what that means. All data is for Harris County only. First up, the Mayor’s race: Dist Hall Turner Garcia King Costello Bell =================================================== A 1,906 4,587 3,509 6,265 1,522 1,129 B 2,494 15,947 … Continue reading →

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8 day finance reports: Mayoral candidates

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the story: Adrian Garcia outspent his chief rivals in the Houston mayor’s race over the last month, hoping to hold what polls suggest is his slipping grip on a spot in the likely December runoff. The final round of … Continue reading →

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Time to get out the vote

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

A look at the strategies for turning out the vote for various Mayoral campaigns. In the days before Monday’s start to early voting, Houston’s top mayoral campaigns moved to mobilize their volunteer forces, aiming to ensure their supporters make it … Continue reading →

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My sense of where things stand right now

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s an aggregation of the polls we’ve seen so far: Candidate HAR HRBC KHOU KPRC Avg ======================================== Turner 19 24 19 20 20.50 Garcia 19 14 9 13 13.75 King 10 18 9 14 12.75 Bell 10 11 6 12 … Continue reading →

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KPRC poll: Turner 20, others close together

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Yet another poll with Sylvester Turner in the lead. As of Oct. 15, State Representative Sylvester Turner finishes just ahead of the rest of the pack of 13 candidates with 20 percent of the vote; attorney Bill King gets 14 … Continue reading →

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30 day finance reports, citywide races

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s a brief summary of the 30 Day campaign finance reports that I’ve been able to find, some of which are on this page and some of which are findable via the normal campaign finance report website, and all of … Continue reading →

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Interview with Marty McVey

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

We continue with Mayoral candidate interviews. Marty McVey is making his first run for elective office, in Houston or anywhere else. A businessman, McVey is the founder and shareholder of private equity businesses in the Real Estate, Energy Services and … Continue reading →

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HRBC poll: Turner 24, King 18

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Looks like we’re going to see more polling than usual this cycle. This was sent as a press release from the Bill King campaign, which was kind enough to forward the full poll data to me when I requested it: … Continue reading →

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Finally, some coverage on the pension issue

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

I kid, I kid. Like it or not, HERO or not, it’s what this race has been about. The top candidates for Houston mayor are talking far more about the city’s growing cost of retiree benefits than voters are, which … Continue reading →

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HAR poll

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

And some more good news here. With less than four weeks to go before the election, the Houston mayoral race remains “fluid,” according to a new poll commissioned by the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR). The poll finds Adrian Garcia … Continue reading →

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Chron Mayoral profile: Marty McVey

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

This is the sixth in a series of profiles on the top candidates running for mayor in Houston. Standing in his sparse west Houston office this summer, Marty McVey traced his route to victory across a city map hung on … Continue reading →

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Get ready for the TV ads to begin

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Keep that DVR remote handy, because you’re going to have to start fast-forwarding through Mayoral campaign ads on TV soon. After nearly topping the July fundraising that put this year’s mayor’s race on track to be the most expensive in … Continue reading →

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A broader overview of the Mayor’s race

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

The TL;dr version of this is basically “meh, not much happening”. With a bevy of candidates and midyear fundraising that collectively topped $7 million, Houston’s 2015 mayoral race has been poised to be a blockbuster. Yet, just five weeks before … Continue reading →

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Time to guess the Chronicle’s endorsements

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

We are a bit more than a month out from the start of early voting, and as such we are getting close to the start of Chronicle endorsement season. I know from doing candidate interviews that the Chron has been … Continue reading →

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Mayoral debate #1

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Who watched? In the first televised debate in the Houston mayor’s race, three of the candidates jockeying to replace Mayor Annise Parker took aim at former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia and the agency’s allegedly low crime clearance rates. The … Continue reading →

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Chron looks at Mayoral fundraising

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

They focus on small-dollar donors. A Houston Chronicle analysis of the top seven candidates’ campaign finance filings covering the first six months of the year shows most businesses and special interest groups are waiting for the race to shape up … Continue reading →

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TOP/SEIU Mayoral forum report

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

From David Ortez: After the dust settled, the forum commenced with the hosts explaining the four pillars of their platform. It boiled down to: 1) Good Jobs; 2) Neighborhoods of Opportunity; 3) Infrastructure; and 4) Immigrant Rights. At the end … Continue reading →

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Mayoral finance reports: Out of town cash and max donors

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

You may have noticed that there’s a lot of money in the Mayoral race this year, even after subtracting what the candidates have given or loaned to themselves. You may be wondering where all that money came from. This post … Continue reading →

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Mayoral finance reports: PACs and consultants

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s take a deeper dive into Mayoral candidate fundraising by examining one of the main categories of raised funds, and one of the main categories of spent funds. I speak of PAC money for the former, and consultant fees/staff salaries … Continue reading →

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Finance reports come trickling in

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

As always, the Mayoral reports lead the story. Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia closed out the first half of the year with more than $1.3 million in the bank, eclipsing City Councilman Stephen Costello by a mere $7,423. According … Continue reading →

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Initial Mayoral fundraising totals

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Lotta money being raised out there, though not quite as much as the topline totals say. Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia was first out of the gate with his figures, announcing Tuesday that he raised $1.5 million since announcing … Continue reading →

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Turner and Garcia lead early Mayoral poll

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

We have our first polling numbers for the 2015 Mayoral election. Sylvester Turner and Adrian Garcia have emerged as the clear front-runners in the first independent poll before the election that will determine Houston’s next mayor. The KHOU – Houston … Continue reading →

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Bell wants Meyerland flooding investigated

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a story about flooding and the Mayor’s race, but not the story about flooding and the Mayor’s race you might have been expecting. Mayoral candidate Chris Bell on Sunday called for an independent investigation into why so many Meyerland … Continue reading →

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ReBuild Houston and the Mayor’s race

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

It’s all about the conservative voters, because no one cares what anyone else thinks. When the most conservative candidate in the Houston mayor’s race dropped out two months ago, the battle to win over right-leaning voters became a two-man show: … Continue reading →

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New litigation against ReBuild Houston

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

To be expected at this point. A class action lawsuit has been filed against the city, seeking to reimburse residents who pay the drainage fee that helps fund ReBuild Houston, the multibillion-dollar streets and drainage improvement program that voters narrowly … Continue reading →

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Supreme Court deals a blow to ReBuild Houston

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Ugh. Houston’s divisive, multibillion-dollar effort to fund two decades of street and drainage improvements faces an uncertain future after the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that the ballot measure voters narrowly approved in 2010 obscured the nature and cost of … Continue reading →

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The other stuff that got discussed at the third forum

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

The third Mayoral candidate forum on Saturday was supposedly about “labor and workers’ rights”, but of course the story is all about the great and powerful pension question, because there’s been so little coverage of it and where the candidates … Continue reading →

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Reviewing the Mayoral websites

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron reviews the candidates’ online presence so far. Five months before voters head to the polls, the candidates’ digital platforms are up and running, but most are heavy on biography, light on ideas. “They’re checking the box. They have … Continue reading →

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Mayoral candidate forum season is underway

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

They talk about the arts. Houston’s mayoral candidates were full of praise for the city’s arts scene Wednesday, when they appeared at a forum together for the first time, though most said they would not support raising taxes or allocating … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: Pushback on the process

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

The early endorsement by the firefighters’ union – and now the Houston Police Officers Union – of Rep. Sylvester Turner for Mayor has ruffled some feathers. The Houston Police Officers’ Union on Tuesday followed their firefighter counterparts who on Monday … Continue reading →

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McVey announces his candidacy

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Another day, another Mayoral hopeful. Private equity executive Marty McVey said Thursday he would reinvigorate Houston’s international business ties if voters elected him mayor this fall. McVey said at the formal launch of his campaign he would usher in a … Continue reading →

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January campaign finance reports – Mayoral wannabes

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

I wrote yesterday about the start of the 2015 campaign season in Houston, and how it’s started a bit early thanks to the ruling in the lawsuit filed by Trebor Gordon that invalidated the blackout period. This week also marked … Continue reading →

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And they’re off

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Gentlemen, start your fundraising engines. The Twitter handles have been rechristened, the first attacks have been fired and the “DONATE!” buttons have gone live. The yearlong slugfest for mayor of Houston has begun. In what is expected to be Houston’s … Continue reading →

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