Whatever you or I may think, Mayor Whitmire is not unpopular.
Mayor John Whitmire
A recent survey from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that while most Houstonians believe both the city and country are going in the wrong direction, most also approve of Mayor John Whitmire and County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s performance in their respective positions.
The survey, released early Thursday, included responses from around 1,400 Houstonians with a 2.62% margin of error.
Around 59% of surveyed residents said Whitmire was doing a good job as mayor, but 41% begged to differ. Hidalgo was given a thumbs up by 55% of those surveyed, and a thumbs down by 45%.
Those who vote Republican were more likely to think Whitmire was doing a good job than Democrats. He got a gold star from 71% of surveyed Republicans and 56% of surveyed Democrats. Hidalgo saw an 80% approval rate among Democrats and a meager 13% approval rate from Republicans.
The poll’s landing page is here and the poll data is here. I’m not particularly interested in scrutinizing it, but knock yourself out. My point is simply this: Any recall effort has two significant obstacles to overcome. One is the large number of signatures needed in a thirty-day span. We’ve already discussed that. The other is that both the recall supporters and the preferred candidate that emerges would have to do a lot of work to overcome the fact that for the most part, people are more or less fine with Mayor Whitmire. There’s definitely a vocal and not insignificant community that strongly dislikes him, but that is not a broadly held sentiment at this time. One poll never means all that much, but if he really were in danger, any reasonable poll would show some signs of it. This ain’t that.
Now of course the point of a recall effort is to convince people that they need to change horses right away. That’s a lot easier to do with someone who is already widely disliked, but it is possible to move public opinion. That takes a lot of money and it often takes some time. Whitmire himself has a lot of money and would surely be able to raise more, so that’s another obstacle. It would probably be best from a strategic perspective to be out there with a visible anti-Whitmire message even before the recall petitions hit the streets, but again that takes money and some kind of existing organization. So far there’s nothing happening and no indication that the resources are in place for there to be anything.
I’m not saying a strong recall effort couldn’t be mounted. I am saying there’s a lot of work to be done before one could reasonably even think about it, and it wouldn’t be easy once you reach that point. Be realistic about the landscape, that’s all I’m saying.
Wrong direction? Which one? East, West?
Such polls are meaningless.
Who can say what the overall city or county performance is at the grassroots level?
What you note is things like potholes, pavement stones now missing at intersections on South Shepherd that was redone just a few years ago, Richmond in Montrose still unwalkable when it rains, massive water main breaks that don’t get fixed for days, wasting massive amounts of potable water that flows straight into the sewer. The skybridge at TMC transit center that connects buses to light rail closed off for months if not already years (escalator dismantled), new supposedly superior fare card card system on Metro buses still not activated 1 or 2 years after schedule. The equipment and installation must have cost millions, but never went live. I am still using my Q card, probably 8 or more years old. At least the old system is still working.
How is a recall gonna make things better?
We should be focusing on specific problems and fixes for them. The above are just a few illustrative examples.
The purpose of a recall isn’t always to get a recall. When they start, they will give Whitmire a lot of bad publicity. They will link those potholes to Whitmire, and they will link those unrepaired water mains to Whitmire. 59% think Houston is going in the wrong direction.
Republicans seem to love Whitmire, as do many Democratic bloggers. 71% of Rs think Whitmire is doing a good job.
Who took the survey?
Nearly two-fifths of the respondents (39%) have a four-year college degree while 61% do not. Democrats account for 54% of this population, Republicans for 31% and Independents for 9%, with 6% either unsure of their partisan identification or identifying with another party or group.