PREVIOUSLY: Congress, Harris County
As we know, this is not an election year for city of Houston offices. That usually makes for a pretty dull summary of finance reports, since it’s just incumbents and about half of them are term-limited and thus not really motivated to do much. But I had last checked on these in January 2020, which was the conclusion of the 2019 election cycle, and I didn’t want to wait till next year for a first look. And you never know what you might find.
Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
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Turner 185,055 76,357 0 522,058
Peck 14,915 10,892 5,000 18,072
Jackson 19,700 14,126 0 33,317
Kamin 79,860 10,697 0 115,828
E-Shabazz 36,000 19,879 0 20,468
Martin 0 3,473 0 130,577
Thomas
Travis 34,950 5,886 21,000 76,500
Cisneros 1,000 456 0 18,296
Gallegos 2,075 8,620 0 77,372
Pollard 280,908 11,371 40,000 303,572
C-Tatum 58,718 6,847 0 117,013
Knox 11,685 4,571 0 16,510
Robinson 58,983 16,085 0 149,046
Kubosh 60,910 24,318 206,010 65,667
Plummer 30,770 6,417 8,175 33,010
Alcorn 3,200 5,251 0 31,013
Brown 24,550 3,892 75,000 19,281
Edwards 0 2,580 0 45,081
Sorry, no links to individual reports this time – the city of Houston’s reporting system spits out downloaded PDFs, which I have to rename and upload to Google Drive to be able to provide links for them, and it ain’t worth the effort at this point. I’ll do that in 2023, when things heat up.
One of these things is not like the others. I’ve been asking folks who they think will run for Mayor in 2023, partly to see how my own speculations have turned out. One name that has come up a lot is that of Ed Pollard, the first-term Council member in District J. Let’s just say his July report does nothing to temper that kind of talk. To put it mildly, one does not need $300K to run for re-election in a low-turnout district like J, and that’s more than two years out from the actual election. Pollard may have his eye on something else, of course – he ran for HD137 in 2016, and who knows what opportunities the next round of redistricting may present – but if one is being mentioned when the question of “who is thinking about running for Mayor” comes up, this is the kind of finance report that supports such talk.
Other names that come up when I bring up the question include Michael Kubosh, Chris Brown, and Amanda Edwards. Neither of the first two has raised all that much, though they both have the capability. Kubosh has knocked $60K off his loan total, which may have contributed to his lower cash-on-hand total. As for Edwards, she’s the opposite of Pollard at this point.
The one person who has been openly talked about as a candidate – by someone other than me, anyway – is Sen. John Whitmire, who has enough cash in his treasury to not sweat the small stuff. He recently announced his intent to run for re-election in 2022, which is completely unsurprising and not in conflict with any 2023 speculation. Mayor Turner ran for and won re-election in HD139 in 2014 before officially beginning his Mayoral campaign in 2015.
Beyond that, not a whole lot to report. Mayor Turner has some money on hand if he wants to influence a charter amendment or two. CM Tiffany Thomas did not have a report that I could find – sometimes, the system is a little wonky that way. The only other number of note was for term-limited CM David Robinson, who has added over $100K to his cash on hand since last January. Maybe that’s a sign that he has his eye on another race, and maybe that just means that some people are good at fundraising. I’ll leave that to you. Next up, HISD and HCC. Let me know what you think.