Amanda Edwards
Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards is suspending her full-term campaign for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, a week after suffering a decisive loss in the special runoff election for the remainder of the term.
Because of filing deadlines, her name will still appear on the ballot during the March 3 Democratic primaries.
Edwards told the Chronicle she is planning to relaunch her “Do Something Houston” voter registration initiative, an effort she started in 2024 that focuses on registering voters through churches, restaurants and community spaces.
She said the goal is to encourage civic participation during what she described as a critical election cycle, pointing to issues including health care, economic opportunity, education and the future of democracy.
Amanda Edwards had some tough luck in her extended campaign for CD18. She would have won the precinct chair vote had it not been for the late entry of Sylvester Turner – she almost won it anyway – she would have been the early favorite in the 2024 primary for CD18 if Sheila Jackson Lee hadn’t jumped back into the race after the 2023 Houston mayoral runoff, and she was considered the favorite this time around in CD18 until Christian Menefee jumped in. Life is like that sometimes. While it wouldn’t have been unusual for her to take another shot in this year’s primary after losing the special election, the magnitude of that defeat surely made it seem unlikely to her that success was in the cards. I like Amanda Edwards, I wish her well, and you know, she’s only 44, there’s no reason she couldn’t run for something else in the future.