PREVOIUSLY:
Harris County
Senate and Congress
When I did the January roundup for the city of Houston, I didn’t expect there to be much activity of interest in July, given that the next regularly scheduled election for the city is in 2027. A lot has happened since then, including a special election for At Large #4 this November, so here we are checking up on everyone again. Let’s get into it.
Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
=======================================================
Whitmire 651,535 175,078 0 2,293,372
Hollins 220,215 88,544 0 404,828
Ramirez 78,810 19,019 30,000 150,858
Davis
Carter 49,020 11,739 3,900 64,555
Plummer
Alcorn (Jan) 1,500 25,100 0 97,580
Alcorn (Jul) 2,200 29,823 0 69,074
Peck 17,165 9,806 0 50,930
Jackson 11,150 1,559 0 15,563
Kamin 148,192 31,662 0 415,852
E-Shabazz 18,300 2,739 0 16,922
Flickinger 43,750 8,102 103,000 51,902
Thomas 50,374 15,788 0 263,032
Huffman 47,275 26,983 0 40,963
Castillo 105,779 20,468 0 155,671
Martinez 55,040 38,749 0 61,257
Pollard 125,089 75,182 1,040,000 2,113,691
C-Tatum 116,203 21,336 0 367,138
Salinas 279,539 18,703 25,000 284,782
Thomas 0 0 0 0
Tyler 18,965 8,994 0 17,501
Turner 0 19,334 0 467,160
Edwards 0 280 0 3,016
Jackson Lee 0 10,257 0 0
Sanchez 0 0 189,213 1,500
Gallegos 0 4,472 0 122,760
Laster 0 0 0 144,383
Robinson 0 0 0 245,744
Sallie Alcorn did not have a report posted in January. I had sent her a message about that at the time, because I know her to be the kind of person who would normally never fail to file a campaign finance report. She didn’t see my message at first but eventually got back to me and filed that report in May. Glad we cleared that up. And her July report was on time as expected.
Willie Davis and Letitia Plummer also didn’t have reports in January. Plummer, as noted before, hasn’t filed a city of Houston campaign finance report since the 8 day report for the 2023 runoff in December. I have no idea why she is so allergic to filing these reports. Normally that would be a niche interest, since she’s termed out as a Council member. But now she’s running for County Judge, and since she announced for that after the June 30 filing deadline, she doesn’t have a Harris County finance report either. We have no idea what her campaign financial picture looks like, or who has been donating to her over the last 18 months – it’s hard for me to believe that she has simply had zero campaign finance activity before now. I do not understand this, and I do not like it. Please file a damn report already.
Mayor Whitmire raised $53K last period. He was a lot busier this period. Whoever wants to run against him in 2027 is going to need to be prepared on that front.
Since January, CM Ed Pollard has loaned himself a million dollars to his campaign. He LOANED HIMSELF a MILLION DOLLARS. As he is term-limited, I can only assume that this is the strongest possible evidence at this time that he is planning to run for Mayor in 2027. I cannot think of a single reason why you would do this otherwise. Also, I had no idea that CM Pollard’s finances allowed for him to loan his campaign this kind of dough.
Alejandra Salinas, the first At Large #4 candidate out of the gate, was known to have had a big haul. She started fundraising in March and leaned heavily on a national network. I don’t know if she was making a bet on CM Plummer’s intentions or just decided not to wait for the 2027 cycle to begin, but either way that’s a strong start.
Jordan Thomas, who posts as Urbanist on Twitter, is the other At Large 4 candidate listed. He filed his report on July 16 for the period of July 16 through December 31. That’s why there’s no activity reported. No other potential AL4 candidates have filed reports yet. The next opportunity will be the 30-day report in October.
Jovon Tyler is one of former Mayor Annise Parker’s kids. He announced a run for Council a few months ago. His report doesn’t specify which Council office he’s running for but it does list 2027 as the election year, so barring a change he doesn’t appear to be in for the At Large #4 special election this November.
I saw that $467K in Sylvester Turner’s account (as far as I can tell, his Congressional account is now closed) and I thought that it needs to be given a purpose, one that would help his fellow Democrats in 2026. I’ve planted that seed with a couple of people close to him, so we’ll see what happens. One can only wonder what plans Robert Gallegos and Mike Laster and David Robinson have for their remaining campaign funds, but I say the same purpose for them would be great. Anyone reading this who has the ear of one of those gentlemen, please make that suggestion to them. As for Sheila Jackson Lee, her city campaign account is now closed out, with $7500 of that last bit of money going to the TLIP program at Texas Southern. There are other good uses for these funds beyond politics, too.
That’s what I’ve got. I’ll do HISD next, and will look at some state races as well. Let me know what you think.
I can’t help it- the large PREVOIUSLY at the top of the page hurts my eyes every time I see it.