|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Two local competitive Democratic primaries are feeling the ripple effects of last year’s race for Houston mayor.
John Whitmire easily defeated U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a December runoff and took office at the beginning of the year, vacating his state Senate District 15 seat. Six candidates now are vying to become the first person other than Whitmire to hold that seat in more than 40 years.
After losing the mayoral election by nearly 30 percentage points, Jackson Lee has not left the campaign trail. The incumbent, first elected to Congressional District 18 in 1994, faces a well-funded challenge from a former opponent in the mayor’s race, Amanda Edwards.
The Democratic and Republican primaries are March 5. Early voting begins Feb. 20.
Both races saw a flurry of activity in the 48-hour period between the Dec. 9 runoff for mayor and the Dec. 11 filing deadline for 2024 state and federal elections.
With Whitmire polling well ahead of Jackson Lee, four candidates already had filed to run for SD-15 prior to the runoff. Two more announced their candidacies after Whitmire’s victory was confirmed.
“The younger, next-generation candidates have been waiting years to have an opportunity to run for this seat,” University of Houston political analyst Nancy Sims said.
Jackson Lee’s defeat also shook up the race for her district. Her Dec. 11 announcement she would run for reelection caused Isaiah Martin, a former intern of hers, to drop out of the congressional race and endorse her.
Edwards, who also once interned for Jackson Lee, opted to stay in the race, arguing the district is ready for a change.
The winners of both Democratic primaries likely will be on glide paths to victory in the November general election because the districts are heavily Democratic.
Jackson Lee or Edwards will face Aaron Ray Hermes or Lana Centonze in November, the two candidates running in the Congressional District 18 Republican Primary.
The winner of the Senate District 15 primary will face Joseph Trahan, a businessman who is running uncontested in the Republican Primary.
Many other races in safe Democratic districts in the Houston area are uncontested altogether by Republicans.
The Harris County Republican Party historically has contested nearly every available race in the county, but the area has shifted further to the left over the past decade, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at the University of Rice.
There are 10 state House seats and one Congressional seat in the Houston area that are uncontested by Republicans.
“A lot of that is a recognition that 2022 was a bucket of cold water over the heads of Harris County Republicans,” Jones said. “They gave it all they could, funding a county judge challenge, raising money to run a high-quality campaign, running against a flawed Democratic candidate, with an unpopular Joe Biden in the White House…. In spite of all that, they were unable to defeat (Lina) Hidalgo or win any countywide race.”
Congressional District 18
Edwards, a Houston native who grew up in the district, previously was a Houston City Council member, a candidate for U.S. Senate and candidate for Houston mayor prior to announcing her bid for Congress.
The 42-year-old lawyer was part of the crowded field vying for Houston mayor last year.
Seven months before the November General Election, Jackson Lee made a late entrance to the race. Seeing no path to victory after Jackson Lee’s announcement, Edwards dropped out in June, endorsed Jackson Lee for mayor, then said she was running for Jackson Lee’s seat.
Congressional District 18 includes much of Houston’s core, then expands north to the Harris County border. The deep blue district is 46 percent Hispanic, 31 percent Black, 23 percent white, and 5 percent Asian.
Since Jackson Lee’s 1994 election, she has been reelected 14 times, often uncontested and never with less than 70 percent of the vote.
If Jackson Lee were elected mayor, Edwards would have been the clear favorite to represent the district in Washington. Instead, Edwards now finds herself squaring off against her old boss. She has not pointed to significant policy differences between herself in Jackson Lee; rather, she’s arguing the district is ready for fresh ideas.
“A lot of that case is being made by the residents themselves,” Edwards said. “They are feeling very shut out from what’s happening in Washington.”
Jackson Lee did not respond to requests for comment.
The 74-year-old congresswoman said during a December news conference that she still is a change agent on Capitol Hill, and her longevity in office is a benefit to her district and the city as a whole.
During the news conference announcing her run for re-election, Jackson Lee cited unfinished business in Congress, including immigration reform, upcoming appropriations from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and a desire to complete the Emancipation Trail that runs from Galveston to Houston.
Edwards said her No. 1 issue if elected would be expanding access to healthcare in the district, noting the loss of her father to an aggressive form of cancer when she was 17.
Edwards has taken advantage of her congressional campaign’s six-month head start.
She raised $269,000 across the last three months of 2023, according to Federal Election Commission Records. Jackson Lee, who was running for mayor for much of that time, only raised about $23,000 for her congressional campaign fund during that period.
Edwards ended 2023 with just under $856,000 cash on hand. Jackson Lee ended the year with $223,000 cash on hand, according to the FEC.
Despite her financial advantage, Edwards faces an uphill battle to unseat Jackson Lee, Sims said.
“(Edwards) has the money to execute a good campaign, but any challenger to a Congressional incumbent in the United States is at a disadvantage, especially one as long as Sheila Jackson Lee,” Sims said.
Jackson Lee does not need much money because she already is so well known within the district, Sims added.
A third candidate, business owner Robert Slater, filed to run in the race on the Dec. 11 candidate filing deadline.
Senate District 15
The crowded Democratic primary for Senate District 15 is far less likely to produce an outright winner on March 5.
In a field of six Democrats, the best any candidate can hope for is finishing in one of the top two spots and advancing to a May 28 runoff, Sims said.
The candidates are state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, emergency room nurse Molly Cook, former Houston ISD teacher Karthik Soora, attorney Alberto “Beto” Cardenas, attorney-mediator Todd Litton, and Michelle Bonton, a community advocate and founder of an art school.
The candidates largely agree on policy, telling voters they will fight for such liberal priorities as Medicaid expansion, abortion rights and gun control.
They are competing to represent an expansive and populous district that contains much of the western half of Houston, stretching from south of Bellaire to 1960 and curving around the city to the east side.
At a January forum hosted by a coalition of Democratic groups, candidates were asked to reflect on Whitmire’s four decades representing the district.
All six were complimentary of the former incumbent’s ability to negotiate deals and build diverse voting coalitions. They all also drew distinctions between themselves and Whitmire, promising to improve upon several perceived shortcomings.
Cook, Litton and Soora all said Whitmire failed to adequately support Democrats running for office at the local and the state level. The three cast themselves as the organizers of the race, pointing to grassroots efforts they have undertaken in the Houston area.
Cook most recently led last year’s Fair For Houston Proposition B campaign; Litton led a nonprofit that recruited Democrats to run for state office in 2020; and Soora helped co-found an organization that mobilizes the vote in the South Asian Community.
Cardenas, who served as general counsel to Texas Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison during the 2000s, and Johnson, who currently serves as a legislator, both said they would style themselves as dealmakers, much like Whitmire.
To win the seat, the candidates may have to contend with as many as five elections this year, including the March primary and the likely primary runoff in May.
A special election to fill the remainder of Whitmire’s is scheduled for early May. That special election also could require a runoff.
Johnson has raised and spent the most money in the race since the mayoral election. As the race’s only elected official representing part of the district, he enjoys higher name recognition than most of his opponents, giving him an advantage in the push to make the runoff, Sims said.
Cook, who ran for the seat against Whitmire in 2022, touts her number of individual campaign donations, which is the highest number in the race.
Soora and Litton each have raised just under $300,000 across the election cycle.
“The candidates split up geographically in that race, as well,” Sims said. “That district is huge. It goes all around the loop, so you might say Beto does well on one side and Molly Cook might do well on another side. That’s why I give Johnson a likely runoff spot, but who is in it with him is anyone’s guess.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
