You know the drill here. Start of the year, we review all of the relevant campaign finance reports. Harris County races are the main event for 2026, at least at this time. I won’t mind if there are some other races of interest, but we know these will be.
Rodney Ellis
Adrian Garcia
Tom Ramsey
Leslie Briones
Teneshia Hudspeth
Carla Wyatt
Marilyn Burgess
Sean Teare
Ed Gonzalez
Christian Menefee
Annette Ramirez
Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
=======================================================
Hidalgo 129,599 162,364 51,400 41,305
Ellis 9,450 59,769 0 6,414,367
Garcia 262,579 268,469 0 1,568,259
Ramsey 49,020 72,222 0 1,569,521
Briones 1,027,232 351,264 0 2,370,541
Hudspeth 1,125 12,676 0 2,790
Wyatt 250 101 0 1,010
Burgess 8,875 22,295 5,207 18,953
Teare 115,280 154,436 0 36,805
Gonzalez 61,301 16,537 0 61,176
Menefee 12,215 38,691 0 246,468
Ramirez 51,385 48,297 0 13,401
The July 2023 reports for Harris County are here, the January 2024 reports are here, and the July 2024 reports are here. Note that the candidates who were on the ballot last November all filed 30-day and 8-day reports for those races, so their reporting period is mostly post-election, from October 27 through December 31. The others only had to file their semi-annual report, so their periods were July 1 through December 31. This is why, for example, Rodney Ellis had such small raised and spent totals.
I’ll be honest: I have no idea what Judge Lina Hidalgo is doing. She had a close race against a well-funded opponent in 2022. She faces more of the same in 2026, except this time she also faces a possible primary against former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who has plenty of name recognition and a strong fundraising machine of her own. And yet here she sits in January 2025 with a campaign treasury on par with a district City Council candidate, and two consecutive periods of spending more than she raised. If I didn’t know better – and I stress, I have no inside knowledge here, just my own speculation – I’d say this is the profile of someone who isn’t planning to run again. If that isn’t the case, I have no idea what she’s waiting for.
For what it’s worth, and for a bit of context, Hidalgo had $419K on hand in January of 2021, which is to say the same time four years ago. She was up over a million on hand six months later. If she posts a report like that this July, I’ll take this all back. There is still time for her to get serious about the financial challenges she will face. I’m just saying, the clock is ticking. Loudly.
Commissioner Briones is not acting like that. That’s the kind of report I’m looking for. It’s possible she could face a primary challenger or two next year, if only because she’s in her first term. She’s not making it easy for them, whoever they may be. Commissioner Garcia had a less-busy period, but he’s in fine shape and also has a much longer tenure in office. He’ll be fine.
None of the other executive offices tend to be big fundraising powers. For better or worse, their fortunes in November will rise or fall on the national environment and the local efforts. This is why, as I’ve been saying, I really want to see them all out on the campaign trail, to help themselves and their ballot mates. It’s possible we’ll see some primary action here – Carla Wyatt knocked off then-incumbent Treasurer Dylan Osborne in 2022, while Marilyn Burgess held off several challengers that same year. The exception, if there is one, would be Teneshia Hudspeth, who has been universally praised for her handling of elections since 2023. Someone may file, because that does happen, but I can’t imagine the argument a Democratic opponent might make against her.
More to come soon. I would have started with Congressional reports, but there are a couple I’m interested in that are still missing for some reason, so that will happen later. We don’t have City of Houston elections but I’ll still show those reports – again, as of Monday there was still one of interest missing – as well as those for HISD and HCC, where the action will be for this November. Let me know what you think.
Annise Parker running against Hidalgo guarantees that I will never support a gay/lesbian candidate ever and will encourage other Latinos that the gay/lesbian community is the enemy of the Latino community.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the East End political machine comes out in favor of Parker in this hypothetical match up.
With Hispanics flipping to GOP I see Briones and Garcia both vulnerable if their republican challenger is Hispanic though the GOP in county is so incompetent they’ll probably put up the same old white guys again.
Lovely cis-gender d0uble-hetero wedding pix in Vogue, though. What’s wrong with that?
What if soft and traditional is the new tough.
Throw in tropical beach and romance.
Love is love. Respect it!
https://www.vogue.com/article/lina-hidalgo-marriage-mental-health-philippines-wedding
Wonderful. Sure looks like a nerd to me.
Just who/what Harris County needs as a County Judge – a 68 year old* white lesbian.
*Seven years younger than the current Mayor.
Sheesh.
@Meme- that is pretty extreme and also unfair. I have met Ms. Parker a few times and my impression was she was a politician who happens to be gay. People assume that there is some kind of political cohesiveness to the gay community but that is not true; there are conservatives within this group just like there are Latino Republicans. That these people would vote against their own interests again and again just boggles my mind. I think maybe there is some kind of dynamic going on where voting R makes the gay ones feel straighter and the Latinos feel whiter, a compensation effect.
In any case it could be argued now that the Latino community is unsupportive of the LGTB+ folk given recent voting trends. Also, is there such a thing as the “Latino community”?
If one separates the American citizens whose relatives may have come from Mexico. Those are about two-thirds of the Latinos here in Houston.
There is quite a lot, especially working with straight white progressives. Robert Gallegos would win in the run-offs. Castro is in the Heights now, while Garcia and Gonzalez also won District H. They did it with support from the gay and white progressives in the Heights.
The gay community has a history of working against the Latino community in Houston and Harris County when the Latino is not gay/lesbian.
There is no dynamic from the Republicans. You have some coconuts, brown on the outside, and want to be white on the inside.
Annise Parker was chosen mayor, and Bob Lanier was among those who wanted to show the world how accepting Houston was. The movers and shakers just haven’t found a brown person they like to support.
If Parker does not have the support of the gay community, she won’t do well. Let us see if she went with Whitmire and Ogg.
I know Parker, and she was a good person. When she first won a large position, she changed.
The elected officials with Spanish last names do little to help the Spanish-speaking community, so they don’t get much backing from the Latino community. However, Garcia came in third when he ran for mayor, and most votes came from the Latino community.
Julian Ramirez won with Republican and Latino support.
Roberto Gallegos was gay, and he won three times in District I. Castro is gay, and he won in District H.
The only Latino who could get Latinos out to vote for a run-off was Ben Reyes. He had his faults, but the community knew that he spoke for them.
Whether one agrees with the deportation news bliss, think about why not a single Latino elected official has not come strongly against it. They are the Rodney Dangerfield of the politicians in Houston.
Yes, it is extreme, just like I promised never to vote with anyone with an R in front after 47 won the nomination in 2016.
I don’t know how you are determining whom ‘the gay community’ supports or doesn’t support, other than the political caucus. Let us remember that in the 80’s and 90’s at least 10,000 gay men died of AIDS in Houston and the male gay population was pretty much wiped out. The gay women are much less visible, hard to know numbers but I am not sure they are a large (or necessarily Democratic) voting bloc.
I worked as Chief of Staff for Felix Fraga and helped that center in the North Side that dealt with HIV. I worked with Clarence Bagby and helped set up the sixth ward as a historic district and some in the Heights.
I know about the past; I have been involved in politics since the early 70s here in Houston. I stayed away for a while but decided.
I considered Leslie Perez and her mom friends.
I supported Lauren Simmons, I don’t have anything against gay/lesbian people, and Leslie Perez was transgender.
But there is something wrong here in Houston when only two council members presently are Latino; Castro, there was only one, and that was Gallegos.
John Paul Barnash (First Gay Municipal Court Judge) and I used to talk almost every day, especially toward the end, before he passed away.