PREVIOUSLY:
Mayor’s race
Controller’s race
Harris Health bond referendum
At Large #1
At Large #2
At Large #3 had the largest non-Mayoral field on the ballot, with nine candidates. Five candidates finished with at least ten percent of the vote, with a sixth falling just short. That left the leaders with 22 and 20 percent, and a muddled picture at the precinct level.
Dist Cantu Joseph Curry Carter Cooper EMcC Nguyen Amadi Ganz
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A 3,396 843 1,707 3,747 1,367 2,088 1,933 380 607
B 1,709 2,094 1,294 2,187 3,834 2,113 939 275 245
C 10,652 1,569 3,488 6,859 4,085 3,619 3,539 541 1,707
D 2,863 1,849 1,697 3,533 5,194 2,713 1,652 397 610
E 3,761 1,085 1,989 6,967 1,942 4,507 2,063 334 551
F 1,360 528 753 1,549 887 990 1,798 308 217
G 5,825 1,208 2,325 8,178 1,587 4,680 2,607 419 683
H 6,044 790 1,369 2,245 1,853 1,308 1,549 470 673
I 4,077 861 1,072 1,608 1,732 1,165 1,449 448 458
J 1,422 421 664 1,150 788 742 1,162 282 209
K 3,052 1,135 1,486 3,022 3,239 2,050 1,592 380 478
Dist Cantu Joseph Curry Carter Cooper EMcC Nguyen Amadi Ganz
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A 21.14% 5.25% 10.62% 23.32% 8.51% 12.99% 12.03% 2.36% 3.78%
B 11.63% 14.25% 8.81% 14.89% 26.10% 14.38% 6.39% 1.87% 1.67%
C 29.54% 4.35% 9.67% 19.02% 11.33% 10.04% 9.81% 1.50% 4.73%
D 13.96% 9.02% 8.27% 17.23% 25.33% 13.23% 8.06% 1.94% 2.97%
E 16.21% 4.68% 8.57% 30.03% 8.37% 19.43% 8.89% 1.44% 2.38%
F 16.21% 6.29% 8.97% 18.46% 10.57% 11.80% 21.43% 3.67% 2.59%
G 21.17% 4.39% 8.45% 29.73% 5.77% 17.01% 9.48% 1.52% 2.48%
H 37.08% 4.85% 8.40% 13.77% 11.37% 8.02% 9.50% 2.88% 4.13%
I 31.68% 6.69% 8.33% 12.49% 13.46% 9.05% 11.26% 3.48% 3.56%
J 20.79% 6.15% 9.71% 16.81% 11.52% 10.85% 16.99% 4.12% 3.06%
K 18.57% 6.91% 9.04% 18.39% 19.71% 12.47% 9.69% 2.31% 2.91%
Richard Cantu, who finished first in this extravaganza, had the plurality of the vote in four districts: C, H, I, and J. His strong showings in the first three of those are his best feature going forward. Runnerup Twila Carter carried Districts A, E, and G, which she’ll certainly need in Round Two. Third place finisher Donnell Cooper led the way in B, D, and K, three districts where Cantu will need to step up, and former Council member (and fifth-place finisher) Richard Nguyen was the top votegetter in his old stomping grounds, District F. Like I said, a muddle.
As all but three Council districts are Democratic, there are multiple paths to victory in a runoff for a Democrat. Running up the totals in the Black districts is one common path, while killing it in C while holding your own in the Republican districts is another. Cantu’s November numbers suggest he’s closer to the second path, with a side order of strong numbers in the Latino districts, but he’ll need something from Column A to win as well. The good news for him is that he ran quite competitively with Carter in Districts A and G; the bad news is that he trailed her in Districts B and D. As the identified and endorsed Democrat in the runoff, I’d expect Cantu to pick up much of the vote that Donnell Cooper got in Round One. I don’t know how much of that he’ll need, but he’ll need some of it.
Carter, as noted before, has some ads running on Facebook. I have no idea how effective those are, but we know the electorate is old, and that at least suggests the possibility that she’s actually getting her ads in front of the people she’d like to see them. The Republican path to victory is more or less the inverse of Democratic Path A, which is dominate the Republican districts and mitigate the damage elsewhere. She has a plausible shot at it.
I can’t let this go without noting Casey Curry’s performance. In every district except A, her vote percentage ranged from 8.27% to 9.71%, which may be the tightest spread outside of a one-percent finisher I’ve ever seen. Even adding in District A and her 10.62% finish there, the range of her showing (2.35 percentage points) is narrower than it was for the guys who got 2.12 and 3.22 percent of the total. I haven’t looked back through my archives to see if this really is an outlier, but it’s close enough. I love nothing more than a statistical oddity in my precinct numbers.
Big support for Carter in the black districts. Shows that the Blacks are trending toward GOP due to social issues and preference for the Trump economic policies. This is part of why Trump is winning in many polls and could get up to 20% blacks support. Carter, Davis and Ramirez are well on their way to winning the at large races. With A, E and G that would mean 6 spots for the GOP on Houston city council.