Erica Davis
Former Precinct 1 Constable’s Office Chief of Staff Erica Davis announced her run for Harris County Judge on Wednesday, joining 11 other challengers in the race to unseat Lina Hidalgo.
Davis has worked as the Trustee for the Harris County Department of Education and comes from a family of educators. She has also served in the Precinct 1 Constable’s Office for more than a decade and grew up in Houston’s Sunnyside neighborhood.
“My work experience coupled with my education has prepared me to hold leaders accountable and implement policies that mirror the diverse county we serve,” Davis said in a statement announcing her run.
Davis is one of several women who reported she was sexually assaulted at a Houston-area Massage Heights location in 2019. Her lawsuit helped spark an investigation of the national chain and landed her assaulter — who also was charged in an assault on an undercover Precinct 1 officer during a sting — in jail.
That undercover officer and Davis later both sued the establishment for negligence. Davis agreed to a monetary settlement in the case.
I did not know that about Erica Davis. Respect to her for her courage and persistence.
I am curious about the seemingly slow pace of her campaign. She filed for Harris County Judge on December 13, which is now four weeks ago, but her impending candidacy was teasted on Twitter a week before that. As far as I can tell, this is her first official communication as a candidate for this office. The primary campaign season is pretty short to begin with, and she’s just now introducing herself to an audience that knows the incumbent very well. Her campaign webpage is still very bare-bones, with almost nothing other than a brief biography – the In the Community and “Erica in the News” sections have nothing. She does now have a campaign Facebook page, which is not linked on her campaign webpage and which appears to be her Facebook page from her 2020 campaign for HCDE renamed for this purpose – the last update is from November 4, 2020, which is to say Election Day.
Nowhere in the press release, the webpage, or the Facebook page is there any stated reason for why she is running. She talks about her life and experience, which would be fine if she were just now gearing up to take on a Republican incumbent in November, but sure seems like an omission in this context given that she’s asking Democratic voters to vote out someone who I daresay is quite popular and is frequently talked up as a future statewide candidate. I’m sure there are people who will vote for Erica Davis because they know her, and there are some people (yes, even Democrats) who will vote for her because they don’t like Judge Hidalgo, but there’s no way that’s enough to get her to a runoff, much less to fifty percent. The question is not “would Erica Davis make for a good County Judge”, it’s “would Erica Davis make for a better County Judge than Lina Hidalgo”, and so far Erica Davis has not attempted to answer that question. I have no idea what she’s waiting for.
(Yes, I know, I could try to schedule an interview with her and ask her that myself. I’m still trying to schedule an interview with Judge Hidalgo, and I’m not interested in talking to anyone else in that race until and unless I’m able to do that. Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, this sure seems like something she should be leading with. It shouldn’t be up to me, or anyone else, to have to get that information out of her.)
One more thing: The Chron persists in saying that there are three Democrats running against Judge Hidalgo when we all know there are five. I double-checked the SOS Qualified Candidates page just to make sure that Maria Garcia and Kevin Howard were still there and hadn’t been disqualified or something, but there they are. I mean, neither of these candidates will make any impression on the race, but they are there on the ballot and I have no idea why the Chronicle seems to be unable to accurately report that.
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