I know you’ve been waiting for this. I have the draft canvass, I’ve been doing the Excel things, so let’s get down to it.
Dist Lovell King Turner Buzbee Boykins Others
====================================================
A 217 3,002 6,481 7,061 646 727
B 114 523 13,274 1,211 1,778 846
C 888 7,259 22,661 12,619 1,536 1,015
D 181 1,127 16,608 2,650 4,095 1,007
E 224 6,134 7,452 14,920 890 727
F 122 1,216 4,773 3,610 517 691
G 366 9,436 11,316 14,493 602 619
H 310 1,573 7,721 3,824 1,167 1,181
I 203 1,086 5,829 3,176 955 1,061
J 117 876 3,402 2,367 392 449
K 204 1,647 12,383 3,739 1,669 698
A 1.20% 16.55% 35.74% 38.94% 3.56% 4.01%
B 0.64% 2.95% 74.80% 6.82% 10.02% 4.77%
C 1.93% 15.79% 49.29% 27.45% 3.34% 2.21%
D 0.71% 4.39% 64.70% 10.32% 15.95% 3.92%
E 0.74% 20.21% 24.56% 49.16% 2.93% 2.40%
F 1.12% 11.13% 43.67% 33.03% 4.73% 6.32%
G 0.99% 25.62% 30.72% 39.35% 1.63% 1.68%
H 1.97% 9.97% 48.94% 24.24% 7.40% 7.49%
I 1.65% 8.82% 47.35% 25.80% 7.76% 8.62%
J 1.54% 11.52% 44.75% 31.13% 5.16% 5.91%
K 1.00% 8.10% 60.88% 18.38% 8.21% 3.43%
I combined all the remaining candidates into the Others column. I should note that Sue Lovell actually received one vote fewer than Victoria Romero, so I suppose there’s an argument for changing whose totals get displayed and whose get aggregated, but we all know who Lovell is and we have no idea who Romero is, so here we are. Looking at this, you have to wonder how it is that Sue Lovell thought it was a good idea to enter the race. Whatever it was she was hoping to accomplish, she didn’t.
Next, there’s Dwight Boykins, the guy that ran as the champion of the firefighters. Remember how much noise there was over the Battle Royale between Mayor Turner and the firefighters, whose proxy in this race was Dwight Boykins? Turner outscored Boykins four to one in Boykins’ own district, and nearly eight to one overall. Not much of a fight, was it? The firefighters have now settled on Tony Buzbee for the runoff, while the rest of labor has lined up behind Mayor Turner. As above, whatever the firefighters hoped to accomplish this election, you have to say they didn’t.
Is this finally the end of Bill King? After getting 66K votes in November of 2015, he fell short of 34K in 2019. Of course, in 2015 he was the default Republican choice, having benefited from Oliver Pennington’s premature exit from that race. Here, he was completely overshadowed by Buzbee’s flash, cash, and trash. He couldn’t even beat Turner in the three Republican Council districts. I feel like there’s more I should be saying here, but honestly these numbers speak for themselves.
As for Buzbee, he did lead the pack in Districts A, E, and G, though he didn’t beat Turner by much in A or G. As noted before, there are no runoffs in E or G, so Buzbee is on his own to get those voters out again in December. Buzbee trails Turner by about 45K votes, while King trailed him by about 19K in 2015. I have no idea how Buzbee makes up that deficit, and if he’s really going to spend whatever it takes, I haven’t seen evidence of it yet. He ran a lot of ads during live sporting events in Round One, so we’ll see if he’s on the air during this weekend’s football games.
That leaves Turner, who did what the polls suggested he would do. He did what he needed to do where he needed to do it, with a much stronger showing in District C than he had four years ago. He’s got Democrats united behind him, and he should have sufficient funds to get his voters out again. If he wants to think big, he should be pondering how he can help some of those Dems in At Large runoffs get across the finish line as well. I’ll be looking at those races in the coming days. The one setback is the delay of the District B runoff, but there is still a runoff in HISD II, which covers a lot of the same turf, so that may mitigate the effect. Let me know what you think.
Excellent, Charles.
It’s been almost 20 years since an incumbent mayor has needed a run off. That speaks volumes to how poor a job Turner has done.
I’m embarrassed for my District G voting in numbers for that knucklehead Buzbee.
Bill King should’ve done much better here.
Lazy pundits might be tempted to simply add King and Buzbee voters to estimate what Buzbee’s base might look like in the runoff but my suspicion is that many King voters will stay home or skip the mayors race. While most of them that do vote will probably vote for Buzbee a not insubstantial number will probably break for Turner too. For Turner to lose you’d need a true shock upset that we are very unlikely to see materialize. Not having the moderate King as an option might also hurt the 5 Republicans running citywide to help get out their base.
Christopher Busby, I don’t see any GOP activist enthusiasm for Buzbee, as evidenced by the fact that no one even offered a resolution at the recent Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee to endorse him over Turner. Some GOP Exec Comm members also voted against endorsing Eric Dick.
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So much rage toward the fire department. I hope that you don’t ever have a fire. The fire fighters were out this weekend campaigning for Buzbee. I know most of the people who vote are indoorsy types, but I am out there saving the planet riding a bike over 100 miles per week, and in District C, the Buzbee yard signs are everywhere, vs. two signs for Turner. Buzbee has some great ideas for volunteerism, community building, homeless pets, and the fire fighters. Turner has what? Not to mention that the Chronicle has been covering the HPD killings and the federal charges filed against the officers, and the question of how high does the corruption go. Progressives such as I long ago moved on from the Democrat party. Folks such as Al Green who said I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president he’ll be re-elected. Yes, just over rule the voters, why not. But I don’t bother to vote. The TIRZ is what brings progress, the mayor doesn’t matter much, council even less. The TIRZ got a grant to re-do Shepherd and Durham, reduce them to three lanes and add sidewalks and bike lanes. The city told me, “Oh, no, we can’t do anything that would slow down the precious carbon emitting freedom machines. They must fly down those streets at 70MPH, and who cares about the planet.” I was trying to get Greta to come here and give City Hall a hearty “How dare you.” However, it may not be necessary thanks to the TIRZ.
“But I don’t bother to vote.”
You’re a real wizard.
Jason, paragraph lives matter. Use them.
Buzbee is a clown with no qualifications for being Mayor. The firefighters need to just go back to work and negotiate their pay and benefits under the law.
Ross, what exactly are the “qualifications” to be mayor? We should not try to lower Buzbee to our level; rather, we should be inspired to rise to his level.
He is able to manage human resources, to inspire people, and help people to achieve their potential. He did these things in the military and as a principal of his firm.
He has also been a philanthropist and has donated much more to the community than any of the candidates out there.
As a military officer he had to maximum resources. He came from a small town someplace in north or east Texas and made himself very wealthy. He gave a lot of money to Texas A&M and was on the Board of Regents.
He has panache and style…some call that flash, but he has good taste and knows quality.
All clowns should have such similar success. My biggest objection to him is drunk driving.
The current administration has not done any great success. And is very Trumpian, by using its position to try to win the election by patching potholes like crazy in the past few months. Just like Trump used his office to get negative information on Biden.
You may also recall the Wayne Dolcefino story from the run off with Turner in the 1990s. What are the qualifications to be mayor? Please note I have made all small paragraphs for ease of reading.
Buzbee has no experience managing a budget within the confines of law, and his comments about raises for firefighters, and others, indicate he is clueless about the limits on General Fund spending, and likely considers the Enterprise Funds as available for raiding, which they aren’t.
Buzbee may have given money away, but he made that money by taking 40% of the proceeds from cases where he allegedly “helped” the “little people”. They would have been helped more if he only took 10%, and let the clients keep more of their money. He’s a plaintiff attorney, which means he’s good at acting, not necessarily at actually doing anything else.
Dolcefino is an ass who lost a defamation suit that was only overturned because Turner was a public figure. If Dolcefino says the sky is blue, I am going to check outside before I believe him.
Buzbee has the Trump taint all over his person at this point. No amount of scrubbin’ is going is going to cleanse that stink, regardless of his “qualifications”.
Ross, you can look on You Tube and see Dolcefino’s story. Everything was true, the court found, however, that it could be libel by implication, which doesn’t even make sense. But the contention that Turner made was that Dolcefino used the facts to make it appear that he was in the fraud. Well, if he wasn’t in on the fraud, he is very easily deceived.
Buzbee of course had to manage his budget as a military officer, I don’t know if that is within the confines of law or not.
Sure he could have taken less money. We could all give away most of our income if we really want to.
Indeed being good is acting and having panache is what is needed. The stage is set, and all that the great actor needs to do, the man whose logo is the great white shark, that man needs only to walk to the center.
C.L. , you are incorrect, Trump may well be one of the greatest presidents ever. Compare him to the greatest in history, all of them did things that were unconstitutional, un-American, acted contrary to their words, and generally did strange things.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.
Then, he made the Gettysburg Address, and referenced the founding of the US, and the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration states that “government derives its just power from the consent of the governed.” Lincoln’s war on the Confederacy showed that their consent would be obtained at gun point.
Franklin Roosevelt let the SS St Louis return to Germany, and the passengers ended up going to extermination camps to die.
Then he came up with our own concentration camps for law abiding Japanese Americans.
President Obama was known as the “deporter in chief” to many.
He said that it would be OK to assassinate US citizens abroad, if they were unilaterally determined to be terrorists. No due process, no transparency.
He would have arrested a whistle blower, Ed Snowden, and revoked his passport, forcing him to move to Russia.
So Trump should be considered as great as the greatest presidents ever.
Jason, I’m at a loss for words. I have a feeling you’re going to be crying in your non-alcoholic beer come November 2020.