This week I’m going to look at the five At Large Council races, beginning with At Large #1. Before I get into the district breakdown, here’s a number to consider: In Harris County, there were 76,675 undervotes in this race. The combined vote total for top two finishers Mike Knox (47,456) and Georgia Provost (28,402) was 75,858. In a very real sense, “none of the above” was the winner in At Large #1.
So with that out of the way, here’s what the vote looked like:
Dist Griff McCas Pool Provost Oliver Knox Lewis PGalv
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A 2,465 1,415 1,138 1,303 1,113 5,560 1,300 575
B 1,314 927 1,799 5,861 3,183 919 1,817 568
C 5,201 7,154 2,530 1,758 1,863 7,375 6,170 799
D 1,509 1,395 1,623 8,152 4,425 1,657 1,867 606
E 3,040 2,346 1,770 1,395 1,774 10,861 1,247 868
F 1,144 959 1,194 1,093 1,114 2,051 699 472
G 5,242 4,910 1,610 1,287 2,002 12,040 1,748 400
H 1,287 1,463 1,414 1,606 1,472 1,451 1,654 1,739
I 1,250 889 1,113 1,619 1,476 1,258 1,176 1,644
J 719 797 682 750 717 1,601 613 318
K 1,555 1,922 1,536 3,573 2,775 2,678 1,773 553
A 16.58% 9.52% 7.65% 8.76% 7.49% 37.39% 8.74% 3.87%
B 8.02% 5.66% 10.98% 35.76% 19.42% 5.61% 11.09% 3.47%
C 15.83% 21.78% 7.70% 5.35% 5.67% 22.45% 18.78% 2.43%
D 7.11% 6.57% 7.64% 38.39% 20.84% 7.80% 8.79% 2.85%
E 13.05% 10.07% 7.60% 5.99% 7.61% 46.61% 5.35% 3.73%
F 13.11% 10.99% 13.68% 12.53% 12.77% 23.50% 8.01% 5.41%
G 17.93% 16.79% 5.51% 4.40% 6.85% 41.18% 5.98% 1.37%
H 10.65% 12.10% 11.70% 13.29% 12.18% 12.01% 13.69% 14.39%
I 11.99% 8.53% 10.68% 15.53% 14.16% 12.07% 11.28% 15.77%
J 11.60% 12.86% 11.01% 12.10% 11.57% 25.84% 9.89% 5.13%
K 9.50% 11.74% 9.39% 21.83% 16.96% 16.36% 10.83% 3.38%
Georgia Provost
I’ve previously discussed how if Lane Lewis, Tom McCasland, and Jenifer Pool had been a single candidate instead of three candidates splitting a subset of voters evenly, that candidate would have led the pack. In a slightly different universe, we could be saying the same thing about Georgia Provost and Chris Oliver. In this universe, Provost did sufficiently better than Oliver among their African-American base of voters to break free from the pack and make it to the December election. That gives her a path to build on for the runoff, and with the formal endorsement of the HCDP (sent out on Friday), she stands to inherit the Lewis/McCasland/Pool voters as well. She will need them to win – her base isn’t big enough if Anglo Dems skip this race next month. I didn’t do an interview with Provost for At Large #1 because it never looked like she was running much of a campaign – you can find the interview I did with her in 2013 for District D here – but since Election Day I’ve seen numerous people rallying around her candidacy on Facebook. I’ll be interested to see what her eight day runoff finance report looks like.
It should be noted that if Georgia Provost had split the vote more evenly with Chris Oliver in places like B and D, the immediate beneficiary would have been Griff Griffin. I know a lot of people who were disillusioned by some of the runoff choices they would be facing immediately after the election. Imagine how much worse that would be if the race here were between Griffin and Mike Knox. I have no idea why anyone would vote for Griff, but in a city this size where only a small minority of voters have any idea who the At Large candidates are, let alone have a chance to meet them and get to know them, it’s not surprising that a name the voters have seen every two years since Bill Clinton was President would draw some support. Along those same lines, note that James Partsch-Galvan was the leading vote-getter in Districts H and I. If you don’t know who you’re voting for, vote for a name that sounds familiar. There was a bit of chatter awhile back about eliminating the at large Council seats in favor of an all-district Council. I like the idea of having Council members that represent the whole city, but the data in At Large #1 is as strong an argument in favor of scrapping the at large system that you’ll see.
As for Mike Knox (whose 2013 interview for District A is here), his task is basically that of Bill King, Bill Frazer, and Jack Christie: Run up the score in the Republican boxes, and not do too badly everywhere else. He collected the most endorsements among the late-entry anti-HERO candidates, he had the best overall performance, and he’s run a Council campaign before. I doubt he’ll have much crossover appeal, but his floor is high enough to win if Provost can’t put it together.
Just as an fyi.
The following candidates in the run-off have been endorsed by the membership of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus:
Mayor — Sylvester Turner
District F — Richard Nguyen
District H — Karla Cisneros
District J — Mike Laster
At-Large 1 — Georgia Provost
At-Large 2 — David Robinson
At-Large 4 — Amanda Edwards
City Controller — Chris Brown
HISD Trustee Dist. II — Rhonda Skillern-Jones
I’m looking at the at-large 3 numbers but look forward to your review.
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