The big news on the Houston municipal offices campaign finance front is that the city has a brand new reporting system, one in which you now get a permalink to the candidates’ reports. You’ll see those below. It’s faster than the previous system as well, which I certainly appreciate. I don’t see a way to look at previous filing periods – the legacy system is still up, if you have a hankering to see the last District C special election reports. I don’t expect previous reports to migrate forward, so as long as that link is still available, I can live with that. Now that the special elections for City Council are behind us, you can see the start of the 2027 election season from here, as several new names show up, with offices specified. Let’s check them out. The January 2026 reports are here, the July 2025 reports are here and the January 2025 reports are here.
John Whitmire – Mayor
Chris Hollins – Controller
Julian Ramirez – AL1
Willie Davis – AL2
Twila Carter – AL3
Alejandra Salinas – AL4
Sallie Alcorn – AL5
Amy Peck – District A
Tarsha Jackson – District B
Joe Panzarella – District C
Carolyn Evans-Shabazz – District D
Fred Flickinger – District E
Tiffany Thomas – District F
Mary Nan Huffman – District G
Mario Castillo – District H
Joaquin Martinez – District I
Ed Pollard – District J
Martha Castex-Tatum – District K
Neeloy Azad – Mayor
Jovon Tyler
Leah Wolfthal – AL5
Bradley Mushinski – AL5
Anthony Collier – District B
Bryan Smart – District B
Frederick Woods – District B
Rashad Cave – District D
Alan Steinberg – District F
Aleja Newman – District K
Sylvester Turner
Mike Laster
David Robinson
Robert Gallegos
Patrick Oathout
Audrey Nath
Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
======================================================
Whitmire 1,131,171 223,251 0 3,846,136
Hollins 193,244 98,993 0 607,360
Ramirez 64,895 8,383 30,000 227,618
Davis 0 8,528 0 8,164
Carter 37,500 11,204 3,900 127,190
Salinas 43,076 51,265 95,000 3,028
Alcorn 12,250 38,672 0 54,351
Peck 0 9,475 0 34,304
Jackson 10,500 6,036 0 14,153
Panzarella 26,477 11,010 0 31,722
E-Shabazz 10,000 5,106 0 22,129
Flickinger 33,100 10,234 103,000 80,761
Thomas 211 4,521 0 259,593
Huffman 0 10,896 0 32,012
Castillo 84,715 19,233 0 224,303
Martinez 38,617 23,603 0 43,917
Pollard 162,451 99,603 1,040,000 2,262,592
C-Tatum 0 11,657 0 355,340
Azad 7,525 8,799 0 39,817
Tyler 1,600 9,369 0 7,515
Wolfthal 39,799 3,355 0 100,605
Mushinski 11,489 5,165 5,000 16,442
Collier 5,640 423 0 21,138
Smart 5,360 4,904 0 4,739
Woods 11,130 901 1,500 12,426
Cave 0 0 0 0
Steinberg 2,000 137 0 0
Newman 1,620 1,166 0 2,254
Turner 0 97,642 0 297,210
Laster 0 0 0 144,383
Robinson 0 500 0 244,750
Gallegos 0 730 0 121,406
Oathout 12,050 28,531 60,441 135
Nath 4,742 107,003 0 0
As before, I have sorted these into current officeholders, current candidates – Jovon Tyler is a candidate for At Large #5, not sure why the system didn’t pick up on that – and former candidates/officeholders. This system was a noticeable improvement from the previous one, in that it provides the direct link to reports as stated before, and also because it was a lot zippier – the reports displayed immediately, instead of taking some number of seconds to download. Kudos to whoever implemented this system, it’s clean and usable.
I’m not going to spend too much time on this, as the city elections won’t be until next year. Some people are already gearing up for that, most notably Mayor Whitmire. CM Ed Pollard has been busy fundraising for awhile, and now he has some other options to pay back that big loan he made to his campaign. I assume Chris Hollins is running for re-election – it’s what he’s been saying he’s doing – but he can also be banking some funds for the election after this one.
Of the current Council member, Julian Ramirez and Mario Castillo are in a strong position to start off 2027. Alejandra Salinas had to spend a bunch of money to win her runoff, but I expect she’ll get her numbers up with no trouble. Tiffany Thomas and Martha Castex-Tatum are term limited, so the question is whether they’ll be looking at other opportunities in 2028, or if they’ll go the David Robinson/Mike Laster route and keep filing mostly similar reports until the end of time.
For the non-incumbents, 2023 candidate Leah Wolfthal has given herself a good head start. I think every first time At Large candidate overestimates their name recognition and the amount of money it takes to move the needle on that. Bradley Mushinski lists former CM Mike Knox as his campaign treasurer, so now you know. Bryan Smart and Rashad Cave have all run for Council before. Anthony Collier is a former Council staffer and current Director of Elections for the Harris County Democratic Party.
Former candidates/officeholders can use their treasury to run for another office, and they can make donations to other candidates or PACs, or to charities. Audrey Nath’s report is a Final report – this doesn’t mean she can’t run for a city office again, just that she’d start anew – and she donated a lot of her remaining cash to various Democratic incumbents, candidates, and affiliated groups. The late Sylvester Turner gave $95K to the Greater North Houston Youth Alliance. If that’s the route his finance manager is taking, I expect to see more like that in January.
We’ll finish up with Senate and Congress next. Let me know what you think.
Just in case someone asks . . .Turner’s campaign account is being used to sponsor Family Day in the Park going forward.