|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The number of people voting in the Houston mayor’s runoff dropped by more than 50,000 from last month’s general election as state Sen. John Whitmire rolled to victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
The low turnout in the runoff election – only 17 percent of Houston voters in Harris County cast ballots – continues a distressing trend in local elections.
Year after year, few Houstonians turn out to vote. When some of the most important contests produce December runoffs, even fewer people show up. This year, the dropoff was 20 percent.
The short lines at polling places may have hurt Whitmire’s opponent more than it did him, according to an analysis of precinct results.
Whitmire grew his vote total in his 20 best-performing precincts in the Nov. 7 election by 25 percent in the runoff, in Harris County precincts with more than 100 voters. Jackson Lee’s support dropped by 9 percent in her best precincts.
“The turnout was low for the second round, and I think that hurt Sheila Jackson Lee tremendously,” said Michael Adams, a professor of public affairs at Texas Southern University.
At a Monday news conference, Jackson Lee said many of her supporters thought the race was over after the November General Election and the campaign cash disadvantage she faced made it difficult to overcome during the month before the runoff. She does not blame the voters or the campaign for her defeat, she added.
“We were the little engine that could,” Jackson Lee said. “We did door knocking, texting digital, everything we could, but repetitive is what you need in getting voters out. People are dealing with their own kitchen table issues.
“Money played a large role in it,” she added.
Even sky-high turnout from Jackson Lee supporters may not have helped her much on Saturday, given the lopsided final margin. Whitmire took 64 percent of the vote to her 36 percent.
The breadth of the victory, however, caught Whitmire’s own advisors off guard. Public opinion polls suggested the race was his to lose, but Jackson Lee’s supporters still gave her a chance up to the final days, Adams said.
“No one was expecting that, because up until the election, in the Black community they were talking about the (get-out-the-vote) and the ground game, and they really were trying to get people to the polls,” Adams said.
The victory came in part thanks to the cross-partisan, multicultural coalition Whitmire built over a two-year campaign. Whitmire managed to seize a share of the vote even in state representative districts in Harris County held by African-Americans, according to an analysis by Hector de León, a longtime activist and data analyst.
In those districts, Whitmire took 39 percent of the vote. He took 70 percent of the vote in districts held by Hispanics and 84 percent of the vote in districts held by white state representatives, according to the analysis.
The council-level results suggest that Jackson Lee failed to energize Black voters to get to the polls in the numbers she needed, Adams said.
The number of votes cast for council candidates in District D, one stronghold of Black political power, fell by 12 percent from the first round percent despite a competitive runoff. The drop-off was only 9 percent in District G, a more white, conservative district that also had a council runoff.
In polling place interviews Saturday, some conservative voters described turning out solely to vote against Jackson Lee. Conservative and moderate voters hold a deeply negative impression of her, according to public opinion polls.
“Houston is still not a liberal bastion. You wouldn’t know that from Commissioners Court. You still have pockets of conservative enclaves,” Adams said. “I think Whitmire tapped into that.”
Overall, turnout slid even lower in this year’s runoff than in the past two December contests.
The runoff between Sylvester Turner and Tony Buzbee four years ago saw 19 percent turnout in Harris County. Turner’s December 2015 runoff with Bill King drew 21 percent turnout.
Between Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, 253,000 people successfully cast ballots for one of the mayoral candidates in the first round of voting last month. That number slid to 201,000 people Saturday.
“You have large numbers of people who are registered to vote, but they simply are not turning out, and I think that’s horrendous,” Adams said.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
