Here are the final early voting totals from the HD139 special election. The disparity between absentee ballots and in-person votes is pretty amazing, isn’t it? I’m going to guess that the Saturday in-person total will be less than the 200 early votes, making the overall total in the 1500 to 1600 range.
As I noted before, this election is to finish out now-Mayor Turner’s unexpired term. The real race for HD139 is the Democratic primary runoff, which will take place on May 24. Early voting for that should run from May 16-20. If Jarvis Johnson wins the special election and the May 24 primary runoff, he gets to have a seven-month boost in seniority when he’s sworn in next January. Otherwise, barring an unlikely special session later this year, no one will remember anything about this election afterwards.
KUHF notes that there are a number of local elections on the menu this Saturday, though I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of Harris County residents have no voting responsibility. Indeed, the HD139 special election is the only one for which the County Clerk is involved. Katy ISD, which includes parts of Fort Bend and Waller Counties as well, and the various MUDs are conducting their own elections, so you need to know if you live in one of those places and then find the appropriate website to know where and when to vote on Saturday. Sugar Land and Richmond in Fort Bend have local races going on, too.
The Rivard Report reminds me that HD139 isn’t the only special legislative election happening right now.
The four candidates for the special May 7 election are Latronda Darnell, Chris Dawkins, Lou Miller and Laura Thompson. Darnell, Dawkins and Miller each filed as a Democrat, and Thompson filed as an independent, to represent a heavily Democratic legislative district.
Darnell is a political newcomer and legislative director who interned for McClendon. Darnell and Lou Miller, an insurance agent, were among six candidates who ran in the March 1 Democratic primary for a full two-year term as the District 120 representative. Darnell and Lou Miller placed fifth and sixth, respectively.
Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, founder and superintendent of the George Gervin Academy (and sister of the Spurs legend), and former City Councilman Mario Salas emerged from the March 1 primary as the two top vote-getters and will be in a May 24 runoff. The winner will be unopposed in November’s general election.
See here for some background, and here for more on the primary in HD120. The fact that neither of the top two finishers in the March primary filed for the special election means that the stakes here are even lower than they are in HD139. Barring anything unexpected (*), the winner of the HD120 special election will be nothing more than a placeholder. I’ll be interested to see how the turnout in that compares to HD139. (The early voting totals from the Bexar County Elections department are for the whole county, not just HD120, and includes a referendum in the city of Castle Hills about continued participation in the VIA transit system, among other things.) The Trib, which covers both legislative specials, has more.
(*) Yes, we are expecting a ruling from the Supreme Court on school finance in the next month or so, and it is possible Greg Abbott could call a special session to deal with that. I’d bet that any school finance special session comes next year, after the regular session. The odds of a special session this year are not zero, but unless you gave me Leicester City odds, I would not bet any money on one happening.
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