Ann Harris Bennett was the only countywide Democratic candidate to be trailing on Election Day as the early voting totals were posted, but as the night went on she cut into the deficit and finally took the lead around 10 PM, going on to win by a modest margin. Here’s how that broke down:
Dist Sullivan Bennett Sullivan% Bennett%
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CD02 168,936 105,778 61.50% 38.50%
CD07 147,165 106,727 57.96% 42.04%
CD09 29,855 103,511 22.39% 77.61%
CD10 83,213 34,795 70.51% 29.49%
CD18 53,558 148,586 26.49% 73.51%
CD29 41,555 88,942 31.84% 68.16%
SBOE6 357,083 249,953 58.82% 41.18%
HD126 37,003 24,186 60.47% 39.53%
HD127 50,028 23,460 68.08% 31.92%
HD128 42,659 16,238 72.43% 27.57%
HD129 44,072 24,777 64.01% 35.99%
HD130 60,429 20,277 74.88% 25.12%
HD131 8,121 37,906 17.64% 82.36%
HD132 39,094 29,321 57.14% 42.86%
HD133 50,116 25,241 66.50% 33.50%
HD134 49,352 39,410 55.60% 44.40%
HD135 33,528 26,112 56.22% 43.78%
HD137 9,664 17,099 36.11% 63.89%
HD138 28,827 22,096 56.61% 43.39%
HD139 13,707 38,266 26.37% 73.63%
HD140 7,556 19,790 27.63% 72.37%
HD141 5,934 32,109 15.60% 84.40%
HD142 11,599 33,182 25.90% 74.10%
HD143 10,372 22,294 31.75% 68.25%
HD144 11,810 15,188 43.74% 56.26%
HD145 12,669 21,519 37.06% 62.94%
HD146 11,323 36,903 23.48% 76.52%
HD147 14,119 43,254 24.61% 75.39%
HD148 20,434 26,999 43.08% 56.92%
HD149 16,639 26,389 38.67% 61.33%
HD150 50,472 25,358 66.56% 33.44%
CC1 82,916 231,040 26.41% 73.59%
CC2 134,067 117,084 53.38% 46.62%
CC3 202,128 149,943 57.41% 42.59%
CC4 220,415 149,294 59.62% 40.38%
Ann Harris Bennett
This was Bennett’s fourth try for office. She had run for County Clerk in 2010 and 2014 against Stan Stanart, and for Tax Assessor in 2012 against now-incumbent Mike Sullivan, losing by fewer than 2,500 votes out of over 1.1 million cast. She becomes the fifth Tax Assessor since 2009, following Paul Bettencourt (who resigned shortly after being re-elected in 2008), Leo Vasquez (appointed to replace Bettencourt), Don Sumners (defeated Vasquez in the 2010 primary and won in November to complete the term), and Sullivan (defeated Sumners in the 2012 primary and then Bennett in November).
Incumbent Tax Assessors tend to do pretty well in re-election efforts. Bettencourt was the top votegetter in 2004, leading even George W. Bush by over 20,000 votes. He trailed only Ed Emmett in 2008, finishing 16K votes ahead of John McCain. Despite his loss, Sullivan was the high scorer among Republicans, beating all the judicial candidates by at least 19K votes. Only Sullivan in 2012 and Sumners in 2010, both first-timers on the November ballot, failed to make the upper echelon. Assuming she runs for re-election in 2020, it will be interesting to see if that same pattern holds for the Democrat Bennett as it has done for her Republican predecessors.
It’s instructive again to compare these results to the judicial races, as they provide a comparison to the base level of partisan support. While Sullivan finished well ahead of the Republican judicial candidates, Bennett wasn’t below the Democratic judicials; she was near the bottom, but did better than four of them. Looking at the numbers across State Rep districts, Bennett was usually a couple hundred votes below the Democratic judicial average, while Sullivan beat the Republican norm by a thousand votes or more. In HD134, he topped it by over 3,000 votes, though interestingly he wasn’t the high scorer there – Lunceford (50,193), Mayfield (49,754), and Bond (49,407) were all ahead of him, with Guiney (49,209), Halbach (49,173), and Ellis (49,081) right behind.
My general hypothesis here is that fewer Republicans skipped this race. I observed in the Sheriff’s race overview that Democratic judicial candidates had more dropoff than Republican judicial candidates did, while the non-judicial Democrats did a good job of holding onto those votes. Bennett performed more like a judicial candidate, while Sullivan overperformed that metric. I assume that the exposure Tax Assessors get, since every year everyone who owns a car and/or a home has to make at least one payment to that person, helps boost their numbers in elections. Again, we’ll see if Bennett benefits from that in her next election.
This concludes my review of Harris County races. I have one more post relating to Harris County in my queue, and I plan to take at least a cursory look at Fort Bend and Dallas Counties. Again, if you have any particular questions you want me to examine, let me know. I hope you have found this all useful.
I think Bennett’s re-election chances will be at the whim of how the mid-term elections are going for higher races.
Brad – Her next election would be in 2020, not during a midterm.
Charles,
Thanks for correcting me.
I still think that Bennett, and other county side Democrats, will be somewhat at the mercy of the predominately straight-party ballot voting public depending on what presumably will be a Trump vs Democratic candidate race in 2020.
Although presidential election years are best for Democrats based on voter turnout.