The Chron looks to the past to analyze Sylvester Turner’s runoff victory.
Sylvester Turner
As the Chronicle reported, voting in the Houston mayor’s runoff fell overwhelmingly along racial lines, with Sylvester Turner edging out a slight victory in part by securing 93 percent of the vote in the city’s majority-black precincts.
King, meanwhile, took 71 percent of the vote in the city’s majority-white precincts. Turner beat King by about 4 percentage points in majority-Hispanic precincts, earning 52 percent of the vote.
That degree of racial polarization also was seen in the 1997 mayor’s race, when Brown won 99 percent of the vote in majority-black precincts and 38 percent in majority-white precincts, according to a 2011 Texas Southern University study.
However, Brown earned just 17 percent of the vote in majority-Hispanic precincts.
TSU political scientist Michael Adams attributed Turner’s comparatively strong support among Latinos in part to his campaign’s Hispanic outreach.
“Campaigns matter,” Adams said, pointing to Turner’s endorsements from Hispanic elected officials and former opponent Adrian Garcia.
Adams also noted that Latinos increasingly have leaned Democratic in the intervening years, and that Mosbacher focused extensively on the Hispanic community during the 1997 race.
See here for the background. Lee Brown’s runoff win over Orlando Sanchez in 2001 was actually closer than his win over Rob Mosbacher in 1997. I’d have liked to see an analysis of that race, especially of the Latino precincts. You’d think Brown would have done worse there in 2001 against Sanchez than in 1997 against Mosbacher. Regardless, I think it’s fair to say that Turner would have been in some trouble this year had he not done as well as he did in these precincts.
Turner won fair and square, I watched him begin his campaign almost two years ago,Chris bell told me Sylvester was spinning his wheels,apparently bell just can’t bat a thousand or even a hundred these days, “pay him,he beat me,straight up”. Turner stayed focused, payed the right people and woke Houston up to his desire to serve.my hat is off to him,a win is a win,even in Houston Texas. Joshua bullard