Previously:
Mayor
City Controller
Let’s get into the Council races, starting with the district Council contests. The January finance reports for city of Houston candidates are here, and the July reports are here.
Dist Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
============================================================
B Jackson 10,810 23,966 0 23,818
B Banks-Brown 0 0 0 0
B London 467 2,787 0 1,368
C Kamin 90,180 109,229 0 286,668
C Bradley 0 0 0 0
D E-Shabazz 20,975 30,647 0 19,192
D Provost 12,500 12,163 0 336
E LemondDixon 35,950 17,910 0 18,039
E Flickinger 11,975 45,914 103,000 63,169
G Huffman 31,100 37,937 0 99,398
G Buzbee 17,383 259,946 250,000 7,437
H Castillo 52,479 57,860 10,000 55,561
H ReyesRevilla 20,018 52,714 0 68,300
H Rivera 11,200 1,448 0 2,519
I Martinez 44,420 63,184 0 80,632
I Gonzales 1,670 0 6,080 0
J Pollard 56,614 75,708 40,000 985,345
J Sanchez 34,251 82,708 20,000 27,022
I will remind you that if you don’t see a candidate’s name, it means I didn’t see an electronically filed finance report for them. Candidates who do not have an opponent, which is to say District A incumbent Amy Peck, District F incumbent Tiffany Thomas, and District K incumbent Martha Castex-Tatum, were not required to file 30 day reports (they will also not have to file 8 day reports). Other candidates may have filed paper reports; I did not go looking for them. As before, you can find all of the reports that I downloaded in this Google Drive folder. You can find all of the candidates in the Erik Manning spreadsheet. Erik Manning is like Batman, if Batman were socially well-adjusted and operated in the daytime.
Alma Banks-Brown and Perata Bradley have found yet another Thing I Have Not Seen Before Now in their filings. I’ve seen blank reports before, but they had always included the candidate’s name and address on page one, along with the campaign treasurer’s name and the type of report and so on. For each of their reports, the only way I could tell it was theirs and not literally a blank form that needed to be filled out is that their names appeared on the signature lines. That’s it – there’s no other piece of information at all. I salute them for their ability to find new frontiers.
After John Whitmire, the candidate whose ads have stalked me the most relentlessly on the Internet has been Abbie Kamin. She’s definitely getting some mileage for her ad buys, but they also show the limits of these ads, in that I don’t live in District C. I’m close, but not there. I’m not sure how they figure out the targets for district candidates, which is obviously easy enough to do if we’re talking a mailer, but however they do it, it’s not exact.
I guess we have to talk about Tony Buzbee, who is picking up where he left off with his Mayoral campaign from hell. Of the $259K he spent in this short period of time, there was $24K for polling and $8K for printing, and the rest is for either consulting or salaries/wages/labor. The latter can include things like blockwalking or it could be a component of consulting. And “consulting” can mean the fees for whatever guru you’ve hired, and it could include whatever media buys or mail program or whatever else they might have in mind. We can’t tell what exactly is going on – who knows, maybe he just has the most expensive gold-plated consultants on the market – but I have to assume it’s something. Anyone in G seeing things from this campaign? Mailers, billboards, robocalls, door-knockers, whatever. Leave a comment and let us know.
I’ve commented plenty of times about Ed Pollard’s fundraising. Here he finally spends a bit of it. Not a whole lot, though $75K is perfectly reasonable and as you can see in the top tier among the districts. Again, it all points to him stocking up for a future candidacy, at some point to be determined.
I’ll look at the At Large reports next. Let me know what you think.
I got a HUGE mailer from Buzbee and. Regular size one from the 3rd candidate in that race.
As for signage in G. Lots of 4X4s and 4X8s for both Buzbee and Huffman but I haven’t seen any billboards so far
Also, love the quote about Erik. He is amazing!!!
Receiving lots and lots of mailers from Buzbee. Overdone with the amount of pearl clutching information on how bad things are in District G and Houston.
One of Buzbee’s mailers had a comically unflattering photo of his opponent Nan Huffman. Very childish approach…which may do well in this heavy Republican district.
2-3 mailers in the last couple of weeks too from Nan Huffman. Funny that both Buzbee and Huffman both claim support from a spanish speaking Hispanic Policeman organization.
Couple mailers too from the D in the race, Isiguzo touting himself as the Progressive.
Mailers on behalf of the third candidate from Dist G, Enyinna Iziguzo, are from the “Houston Hispanic Political Action Committee,” which seems to actually be backing Buzbee. Possibly trying to peel away democrats who may be inclined to support Huffman.
A quick look through their social media shows that they shared several Buzbee posts around the time of his announcement for District G. Here’s one example:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=621466246808392&id=100068350665779&mibextid=Nif5oz