This is going to be a somewhat long post about the upcoming elections and my coverage of candidates in the primaries. I’ve got some ground to cover, so settle in.
At this time, we have the following elections on the calendar:
January 31: The special election runoff for CD18 between Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards. Early voting will run January 21-27. The special election runoff for SD09 in Tarrant County is on the same schedule. A win by Democrat Taylor Rehmet would be at least a minor earthquake. A close loss would at least portend positive things for the rest of the year.
March 3: Primary Day 2026. Early voting runs from Tuesday, February 17 through Friday, February 27. Monday the 16th is Presidents Day and there is no voting on federal holidays, so we get one fewer day. The 2026 elections calendar is here for your reference.
April 4: Special election day for Houston City Council District C, to fill the vacancy left by the coming departure of CM Abbie Kamin, who is running for Harris County Attorney. As of this writing there are four declared candidates: Nick Hellyar, Joseph Panzarella (these are the only two officially filed candidates as of December 31), Angelica Luna Kaufman, who is the chief of staff for County Judge Lina Hidalgo, and Patrick Oathout, who this article says “works in AI safety”, whatever that means. The filing deadline for this race is February 2. Early voting will most likely run from Wednesday, March 25 through Tuesday, March 31, as that is the normal schedule for a Saturday race. If I’m wrong about that, it will be that early voting starts on Monday the 23rd instead.
May 2: Uniform election date for May. Generally there’s not much in Harris County in May of even-numbered years. Katy ISD looks like the main event to me.
May 26: Primary runoffs. There could be runoffs on the Democratic side for Senate, Governor, and Lite Guv, and here in Harris County for CD18 (again). The Republicans could have a runoff for Senate. Don’t expect things to get quiet after March.
Unknown at this time: The runoff for District C. I guess maybe it could be on May 2? If not, then there could be three May elections, or an election in June. I’ll get back to you on this.
I will begin running candidate interviews and judicial Q&As starting tomorrow. I’ve done interviews for the following races:
CD09
CD29
CD38
HD131
Harris County Judge
Harris County Attorney
HCDP Chair
There’s a big field for Harris County District Clerk, but with that many candidates and only so much one can ask about for that office, I decided to put that off for the runoff. I also chose to not revisit CD18, as I did recent interviews with Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards and I didn’t see the value in covering that ground again. Those interviews are still worth your time to listen to, so please do that. I did not reach out to Rep. Al Green – I made an effort to interview him some years ago, and he declined the opportunity. Had I felt the need to do other interviews for CD18 I’d have tried again but I had enough other stuff to do. I may revisit this one in the runoffs as well.
There are seven races and seven Mondays until early voting starts, so you do the math on the interview schedule. I will start with CD09 and then CD38, and likely the two Harris County races after that. I’ve still got a couple of interviews to do, which is partly why the schedule is still in flux.
I don’t often ask you, my readers, to do things for me, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would share links to any of the forthcoming interviews that interest you. I do these to help people know who they’re voting for, and selfishly sometimes to help me decide who I’ll be voting for, and so I hope to get these out to as wide an audience as possible. Share them however you like – if you follow the Off the Kuff Facebook page, you can share the posts about the interviews from there as well. Whatever you can and are willing to do, I appreciate it.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Get ready to hear from a bunch of candidates, and get ready to vote. Here’s to a good 2026 for us all.
We have a tsunami of elections coming at us. Thank you.
I hope that one of your New Year resolutions is to get more active in getting rid of the orange vulgarian as well as all of his flying monkeys. To that end there are many options, you can begin by joining the Democratic club in your area. There are Bellaire/ Braeswood Democrats, Meyerland Area Democrats, The Southeast Democrats Network (Third Ward,UH), Bayou Blue Democrats (Downtown, Montrose, River Oaks, Greenway), the Greater Heights Democratic Club, the Bay Area New Democrats, and many more. Just search for (your area) Democrats. Another way to find nearby clubs and volunteer opportunities is to sign up with Mobilize, it will offer activities in your area for you to join. And of course, sign up with Actblue to make giving easy. Looking for Texas candidates to support? Go to Lone Star Left along with this column to see Texas candidate profiles.
https://www.mobilize.us/
By the way I think Taylor Rehmet has a real shot, folks up there are pissed about Patriot Mobile. Give him some cash so we can give the bad guys some big time heartburn.