For a variety of reasons, I probably won’t follow the daily EV reports for the runoff closely, but I will at least keep an eye on them. First, though, this bit from the Chron story on the start of early voting was noteworthy.
Former council member Dwight Boykins and attorney Alejandra Salinas advanced to the runoff after finishing within about 1 percentage point of each other in the Nov. 4 general election.
Salinas received 21.22% of the vote countywide while Boykins took 20.07%, according to official results from Harris County. Salinas led in early voting and Election Day tallies, while Boykins received more mail-in ballots.
The runoff pits two sharply contrasting political profiles against each other.
Boykins, who previously represented District D and ran for mayor in 2019, has leaned heavily on name recognition and a broad list of endorsements from across the political spectrum, including Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Commissioner Tom Ramsey, Beto O’Rourke and several Houston council members. He has campaigned on his record of “delivering for neighborhoods,” pointing to projects like bringing an H-E-B to his former district.
Salinas, a Susman Godfrey lawyer and first-time candidate, enters the runoff with a sizable fundraising advantage and the backing of major labor organizations, LGBTQ+ groups and elected officials such as U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia and District Attorney Sean Teare. Her campaign has centered on equity, worker protections and “fighting for every Houstonian, no matter where they live.”
That’s an interesting collection of endorsers for Boykins. Local politics is weird in its own way. Also, Salinas led only on Election Day, per the HarrisVotes results. I don’t know how much that matters for the runoff, but there it is.
Here’s the Day One EV report for the runoff. A total of 3,028 ballots were cast, 1,382 by mail and 1,646 in person. This is just Houston, not all of Harris County, and it’s just this race plus HCC District II. I’m going to guess right now that we’ll get something like 15-20K total ballots cast early, and that this will be more than half the final total, unlike the November race was. I’ll check back on that later, but without the CD18 race and the state constitutional amendments, we’re in a much lower turnout environment. Go vote, there probably won’t be a line.
The Chronicle reporter failed to include results from the other two counties which have small sections of Houston. The first round was actually even closer:
Boykins Ft. Bend: 1919
Boykins Harris: 35,944
Boykins Montgomery: 24
Boykins total: 37,887
Salinas Ft. Bend: 157
Salinas Harris: 37,977
Salinas Montgomery: 29
Salinas total: 38,163
BTW, I could not find these data anywhere on the City of Houston secretary’s site. Did I miss it?
Mainstream, it was linked on an AL Position 4 Election Information page – https://houstontx.gov/2025al4/2025-962.pdf