I’m going to take a look at the five At Large Council races as well, since all of them have interesting things to say about what happened. First up is At Large #1, where incumbent Mike Knox will face first time candidate Raj Salhotra in December.
Dist Knox Provost Raj YNF Bmon
============================================
A 7,587 1,465 2,482 2,730 1,108
B 1,952 5,515 1,856 3,485 2,473
C 14,652 2,129 15,043 4,713 1,547
D 3,148 7,214 3,719 4,185 4,266
E 13,721 1,711 3,257 3,140 1,942
F 3,405 1,116 1,522 2,119 1,004
G 18,030 1,836 5,034 2,845 1,585
H 2,869 1,352 3,578 5,080 847
I 1,982 1,323 2,329 4,381 781
J 2,300 685 1,487 1,393 631
K 4,237 3,285 4,396 2,985 2,798
A 49.36% 9.53% 16.15% 17.76% 7.21%
B 12.77% 36.09% 12.15% 22.81% 16.18%
C 38.47% 5.59% 39.50% 12.38% 4.06%
D 13.97% 32.02% 16.51% 18.57% 18.93%
E 57.72% 7.20% 13.70% 13.21% 8.17%
F 37.15% 12.18% 16.60% 23.12% 10.95%
G 61.47% 6.26% 17.16% 9.70% 5.40%
H 20.90% 9.85% 26.07% 37.01% 6.17%
I 18.36% 12.25% 21.57% 40.58% 7.23%
J 35.41% 10.54% 22.89% 21.44% 9.71%
K 23.94% 18.56% 24.83% 16.86% 15.81%
A couple of big-picture items before we get into the district numbers. Knox got 36.51% of the Harris County vote in 2019. He was the only Republican candidate in the race this year. He got 24.75% in 2015, but Griff Griffin was also in that race, and the two of them combined for 37.65% of the vote. The two Republican Mayoral candidates (Buzbee and King) combined for 42.79% of the vote this year. This is all very fuzzy and I wouldn’t put too much stock in it, I’m just trying to get a (very) rough idea of the overall Republican vote in the city.
At Large races are notorious for having a high undervote rate, largely because the candidates are usually not well known to most voters. In this case, At Large #1 had the lowest undervote rate of any of the At Large races, at 17.65%. The others ranged from 21.05% to 23.00%. By contrast, the Mayor’s race had an undervote rate of 1.59%. One possible reason for this is that four of the five At Large #1 contestants had been in at least one race before, and the fifth raised enough money to do some mailers.
Mike Knox showed strength where you’d expect him to, in Districts A, E, and G, and he did pretty well in C, F, and J. If he can repeat that kind of performance in the runoff, he can win. Like Tony Buzbee, he would have preferred for there to be runoffs in E and G as well, but unlike Buzbee he doesn’t have a ton of money to throw around to generate turnout for himself. The risk for him is that Buzbee will go down with a whimper and drag him and the other Republican runoff candidates as well.
Raj Salhotra carried Districts C and K, both by small amounts. He did pretty well for a first time candidate, but he has his work cut out for him. He has about a 29K deficit to overcome, and he has to win a lot of votes in districts like B and D despite having Georgia Provost and Larry Blackmon endorse Knox in the runoff. Honestly, I’d probably put whatever money he has into mailers and robocalls tying Knox to Buzbee and Trump, and hope for the best. Getting those Democrats who have been endorsing Mayor Turner to speak up on his behalf would help, too.
I admit, I expected Georgia Provost to be Salhotra’s main competition for the second runoff slot. She’s run before, she made the runoff in 2015, and she starts with a base of support. But she doesn’t raise money, and while she obviously does well in the African-American districts, she doesn’t do much more than just split that vote with the other African-American candidate on the ballot. In fact, she did better in 2015 with Chris Oliver also in the race than she did this year with Larry Blackmon, who is just a perennial candidate. You could muster up an argument that Blackmon cost her a shot at the runoff, as her total plus his would have outscored Salhotra, but the presence of Oliver in 2015 didn’t hold her back.
I was a little surprised to see Yolanda Navarro Flores do as well as she did. She was last on a ballot in 2013, and had not won races other than for HCC Trustee. She entered late and raised no money, but as you can see she did very well in H and I, she outpaced Provost everywhere except B, D, and K, and outpaced Salhotra everywhere except C, E, G, and K. An earlier entry and some actual fundraising, and she could still be in this race.
I’ll be looking at the rest of the races over the next few days. Let me know what you think.
Thank you for not bringing up unfounded allegations about Yolanda Navarro Flores.
As to running last in 2013, she lost to Zeph Capo who was backed by the Greater Houston Partnership and spent about $80,000 to defeat her. That does not include all the unfounded allegations that were repeated constantly by the whore of a newspaper that goes by the Houston Chronicle. She lost 52% to 48%. She had been first in with about the same percentage in the November election.
Yolanda has also been one of those persons that white liberals and gays love to hate. I have no idea why, maybe because she does not kiss their ass like all the other elected officials with maybe one exception, that would by Sylvia
Trevino. Yolanda was the first person to introduce a bill that would allow undocumented children who graduated from high school to attend public colleges as residents rather than as foreign students. She introduced numerous legislation that would make neighborhoods better.
So tell why the gay community and the white liberal love hating on her?
Did YNF even campaign in the Anglo Dem/LGBT community? Where was she?
I saw Raj….everywhere.
You have to campaign to get people to vote for you. If she had a campaign in C, I never saw it.
What you cheerlead as ‘not kissing their asses’, was really not bothering to compete.
Sylvia does bother to campaign to the LGBT community and the Anglo Dems in her district and supports the Equality Act.
Dont complain if a group doesnt support you if you never ask
Oops the Sylvia I was speaking of was Garcia. I have no clue who Sylvia Trevino is.
C.L. She has asked in previous elections, Trump lovers like you have no idea what you are talking about except to promote your hate of Latinos and Latinas.
Maybe if you had read the article you would realize that she got in late, one hour before the deadline. She did not raise money, and was competing against Raj who was the hand picked candidate by the white liberal and gay communities.
You also spoke negatively against Lina Hidalgo, another Latina.
At-Large one had been reserved for Raj, I know that because I had some one call me for advice I suggested she run in 1, said that no Hispanic was going to run in that race against Raj.
White liberals/Gays, and Trump lovers like you might love Raj, he is supported by a group that is anti-union, anti-public schools, pro charter schools. I guess you love those Uber contract workers, but that is not good of the country as a whole. There is a reason why the union is or did not endorse him on the run-off.
Unions are what made America Great!
Unions are good for America and so is public education.
Oops Tom in Lazybrook, sorry C.L. But Tom in Lazybrook is your kind of person so I mistook him for you.
LOL! Manny, you just can’t hide your disdain for white people, or for gays. In fact, it seems like you pretty much hate everyone under the Democrat umbrella except for Latinos, specifically Latinos of Mexican heritage. You clearly hate blacks too, as we discovered during the HISD board scandals.
You are a Democrat of convenience, maybe even a DINO. You really only care what Dems can do for Mexican American people. Your true political affiliation should be with La Raza Unida, not with the Democrats. And Joe Biden has a suggestion for you, and people like you:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joe-biden-tells-activist-you-should-vote-for-trump-during-greenwood-town-hall/vi-BBX9dhw
Only racists Bill, I get along find with white people and gays that are not racists or bigots.
I did support and worked with La Raza Unida, also civil rights. I am what I am.
Let me tell you and Tom in Lazybrook, about Yolanda and Jessica Farrar and the white liberals from the Heights. Yolanda when she was a state Rep. hired a friend, they are still friends. The friend’s name is Linda Morales. Linda has been open about her sexuality when most gays were hiding in the closet. Because of that Yolanda was attacked as a Lesbian by Jessica Farrar. Jessica worked for Ben Reyes, the darling of the white liberals and gays, Jessica Farrar.
I don’t forget what the so called liberals and gays do, if Leslie Perez was still alive she could tell many of you bigots and racists a ton of stories.
The chronicle and the Democrats attacked her unmercifully.
https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/j3860716r
I have never been politically correct, I tell the truth and this not really for you because you Bill will die a racist, you ain’t changing.
fine
I’d like to bring the thread back on topic, by concentrating on what I think has been a missed opportunity by the 5 at large Democrats. Every single one of them is running against a Republican. They should have rightly seen how Turner dispatched Buzbee by linking him to Trump and coordinated the campaign to turn the election partisan. They didn’t effectively do so. In every AL race, that could have been a help.
I think that the HCDP and party leaders should have had some more intense discussions with “Democrats” prior to the general about the implications of endorsing a Republican in the runoff and presented them with a ‘commitment to the Democratic Party’ pledge for them to agree to not endorse any Republican in the runoff so that people can see their commitment up front regarding Republican candidates.
I know that, going forward, I will ask primary candidates and general non-partisan candidates in municipal elections to commit publicly to not endorse any Republican in the general. I don’t care if its Georgia Provost endorsing Republican Mike Knox in 2019 in AL1 or Chris Bell endorsing Republican Bill King for Mayor in 2015.
There will sometimes be bad blood after a hard fought primary/municipal general campaign. Someone’s personal bad blood cannot be exploited by the Republicans unless the Democrats let it.
Tom in Lazybrook, Buzbee is not a Republican. Did he donate to Trump yes he did.
Did he donate and gave to Hillary Clinton, yes he did.
Did he donate to Turner and raised funds for him yes, he did.
Did he donate to Democrats running for judge, yes he did.
Did he vote in one Republican primary yes, he did. He also used to be Democratic Chair of Galveston county if I am not mistaken. He also ran as a Democrat for a state rep.
Bill King was not a Republican either,
Larry Blackmon also endorsed Knox.
Maybe ask, why both Mr. Blackmon and Ms. Provost went with Knox and not Raj. Maybe they had a good reason.
Maybe the question why are people willing to endorse a person that votes in Republican primaries, Knox, rather than the so called Democrat.
I know that Knox called and asked Yolanda Navarro Flores for her endorsement, Raj has not. Raj below the radar ran a very nasty campaign against those he perceived that would prevent him getting into a run-off. At least that is what I have heard.
Provost’s support of tea-partier Knox over Raj should come as no surprise. She’s cozy with a lot of folks like Dave Wilson. Dems should not vote for her if she ever runs again, as all she does is split the Dem vote to advance the Republicans. She is not good for Democratic Party ideals in Harris County.
Voter, other than people that are of African descendant, who else do you think voted for her?
So if she was running against Knox, like last time people should not vote her, should they have voted for Knox? I think that quite a few people that are Democrats that chose to vote for Knox last time. There will be a lot of black people and brown people and probably white people that vote in Democratic Primaries that will vote for Kuboch.
I am curious, what are Democratic Party ideals in Harris County? Is she a DINO?
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