PREVIOUSLY:
Continuing with our January campaign finance report review, let’s check in on the current City of Houston elected officials and other people of interest.
Candidate Raised Spent Loan On Hand
=======================================================
Whitmire 52,900 61,210 0 2,432,442
Hollins 101,493 56,387 0 259,834
Ramirez 39,029 16,384 30,000 86,651
Davis
Carter 6,000 1,979 4,000 23,275
Plummer
Alcorn
Peck 3,700 11,437 0 48,520
Jackson 1,000 9,007 0 5,972
Kamin 13,223 21,038 0 285,039
E-Shabazz 3,296 3,693 0 1,362
Flickinger 3,750 3,372 103,000 9,762
Thomas 66,150 6,708 0 229,329
Huffman 1,350 25,391 0 14,264
Castillo 35,430 16,514 0 62,645
Martinez 9,585 51,566 0 50,756
Pollard 113,137 53,614 40,000 1,078,759
C-Tatum 15,250 20,257 0 272,193
Turner 0 36,686 0 486,494
Edwards 0 643 0 3,053
Jackson Lee 0 18,557 0 10,257
Sanchez 0 0 189,213 1,500
Laster 0 0 0 144,383
Robinson 0 750 0 241,061
The January 2024 reports are here and the July 2024 reports are here. The three blanks, all At Large electeds, are ones that were not in the system when I checked them last week. As is my habit in non-election years for the city, I didn’t upload these reports to my Google drive, so you’ll either have to take my word for it on these totals or go look them up yourself.
Mayor Whitmire, who has certainly had his hands full over the past year, clearly took the period off from fundraising. Good choice, as he little to worry about at this point and even the Dems who love him might not have been too happy at the thought of him sucking up campaign funds during last year’s cycle. City Controller Chris Hollins, who seems likely to be his biggest future electoral threat, raised a few bucks but is still at about ten percent of his cash on hand. This will all heat up soon enough – given how empty the electoral calendar for 2025 is, I’d expect to see some bigger numbers for all in July and next January – but for last year it was fairly calm.
The big money person over the previous period was CM Ed Pollard, continuing a run in which he has built up his treasury to a point that is ludicrously beyond what would be needed for his Council district, and that’s if he weren’t term limited. He could certainly be looking at a Mayoral campaign himself in 2027, but there could be other destinations – just to wildly speculate a bit, CDs 09 and 18, SD13, and Harris County Judge are all plausible possibilities. CM Tiffany Thomas is also building up a bit of a treasury; CMs Abbie Kamin and Martha Castex-Tatum are already there. I believe they are all also term limited, which naturally leads to some pondering about possible future choices.
Former CMs David Robinson and Mike Laster, who was last elected in 2015, still have a pile of their own campaign funds. By law, sooner or later they’ll have to do something about it. Man about town Orlando Sanchez still owes someone or something a bunch of money; I have no idea if there are any statutory requirements for paying it off.
My original plan for this series was to start with Congressional reports, but as of Friday the FEC site still did not have a report for former Mayor and now Rep. Sylvester Turner. (They didn’t have one for Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, either.) He had $84K in his Congressional account as of October 15. I assume his city money will migrate over there, but maybe he’ll spend it down on other thigs, I don’t know. This is probably the last time that there’s a reason to look at reports for Amanda Edwards or the late Sheila Jackson Lee, at least until Edwards runs for something again, if she ever does. I’ll include them in the Congressional roundup, for either after the data is fully there or I give up on there being anything for Turner and Fletcher for the period.
Next up is HISD and HCC, the only November elections we’re sure to have, and then I’ll come back to the Congressional report. As always, let me know what you think.