PREVIOUSLY:
I got in a groove and took what I learned from mucking around with the Mayor’s race data and was able to clean up the same for the Controller’s race in relatively short order. As you’ll see, the story the data tells is as least as straightforward.
Dist Hollins Sanchez Martin Nobles
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A 6,525 6,288 2,628 2,039
B 9,225 1,927 1,157 3,401
C 20,856 9,753 4,948 4,580
D 13,316 3,288 1,765 3,575
E 6,920 5,611 11,638 2,331
F 3,452 2,653 1,415 1,285
G 10,460 13,046 4,459 2,514
H 7,232 5,571 1,683 1,967
I 6,313 4,571 1,326 1,694
J 3,019 2,505 1,033 857
K 9,993 3,915 1,665 2,407
Dist Hollins Sanchez Martin Nobles
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A 37.33% 35.97% 15.03% 11.66%
B 58.72% 12.27% 7.36% 21.65%
C 51.96% 24.30% 12.33% 11.41%
D 60.68% 14.98% 8.04% 16.29%
E 26.11% 21.17% 43.92% 8.80%
F 39.20% 30.13% 16.07% 14.59%
G 34.32% 42.80% 14.63% 8.25%
H 43.96% 33.86% 10.23% 11.96%
I 45.40% 32.88% 9.54% 12.18%
J 40.72% 33.79% 13.93% 11.56%
K 55.58% 21.77% 9.26% 13.39%
Chris Hollins came close to hitting fifty percent on Election Day, ultimately landing just above 45% and leading Orlando Sanchez by eighteen points. That makes his task much easier than either Mayoral contender, and it’s not hard to see most of Shannan Nobles’ voters shifting to him for the runoff. Hollins already did pretty well in Districts B, D, and K, especially given that he was splitting the Black vote with Nobles. He has room to grow, and he already started with a strong lead.
You know how the Chronicle runs “What Houston looked like 30 years ago” stories on its homepage? I feel like we could start seeing old Orlando Sanchez campaign signs in the photos accompanying those stories. Dude’s been around forever, and there’s no question that helps him in these elections. The problem from a runoff perspective is that outside of Dave Martin’s District E, he already mostly dominated the Republican vote in November. Martin did get about 7K more votes than Nobles, so as far as that goes if his voters mostly transfer over that will be a net positive for Sanchez. The problem is that Hollins led by 40K votes in November. It’s going to take a lot more than that.
It’s not always easy to tell what is cause and what is effect in runoff situations. While I believe that Mayoral races drive turnout, we know that some people will show up primarily because of some other candidate, and from there they may affect the other runoffs. We can say that having Hollins on the ballot will help Sheila Jackson Lee, but we can also say that having both John Whitmire and SJL on the ballot will help Hollins. However you look at it, Hollins is in a solid position.
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