Everything You Need to Know About the Mayoral Runoff

Hey everyone, we're ending Election Week with a roundup of the biggest stories like the mayor's race, amendments, and how the entire thing ran in Htown. Plus you won't believe just how diverse Harris County is, and the Q Patrol is back on the beat. Houston Landing Civic Engagement reporter Tim Carlin joins me to break it all down. It's Friday, November 10th, 2023. I'm Raheel Rumsoneli, and here's what Houston's talking about. Tim, happy Friday, I know it was a rough week, Election Day has come and gone, and I want to start with this one. We're going to talk about the election a lot, but pizza is the official Election Day food, right? For the media? There's no doubt. No doubt at all. So is there a particular pizza that you like on Election Day? Oh my God, you know, I'm so new to Houston. I just moved here in May that I kind of deferred. I was like, wherever you tell me that we're going to get good pizza, I'm down. I'm a bad reporter. I don't know where we got pizza from last night, but I can report that wherever I eat pizza from, whatever it's pretty good. So I'm satisfied. There you go. You know what? You just need that nice pizza hit as the election results come in, and the returns are updating. So it was a cool night. Let's get to our biggest story, right? Out the gate, where you got to? Well, obviously, biggest story here. Sheila Jackson Lee, John Whitmeyer, head is for a runoff, next one, December 9. You know, I think that some, we could have predicted this, I guess, for lack of other word, but it's official. The top two finishers from the race last night, but since neither of them received more than 50% of the votes. We are headed toward a mayoral runoff. Yeah, and this was something a lot of people were talking about. We had Paul on earlier to talk about this as well. And I think all signs pointed to a runoff between the two biggest candidates in this election. Now that the runoff is here, this is where it's going to get interesting because the jockeying for who's going to get those other votes, that's going to be the fun part. And look, the senator Whitmeyer right now has a lot more money, but Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is really good at fundraising, and she's really good at getting boots on the ground. How do you see that playing out? You're kind of hitting right on the key issues. A lot of experts are telling us that when it comes to a runoff, it's a different beast, right? You know, your main election, it's about, it's all systems go. It's name recognition, it's fundraising, it's boots on the ground. But when you get to a runoff, especially when you're hosting a runoff election, you know, on a Saturday, in between the holidays, it's all about turnout. It's all about who can get the most people to come out to the polls on a probably cold, probably wet December weekend day. It's honestly anyone's game at this point. No polling does put Whitmeyer ahead. He finished slightly ahead of Jackson Lee in the initial race, but the runoffs kind of anyone's game, I think, at this point, it's all about that ground game who can put boots on the ground and who can get voters to turn out for a second time. Gilbert Garcia finished third with 7.21% of the votes, 18,000 votes roughly, and then Jack Christie came in fourth with 17,000 total votes, about 6.87%. Do you see any of those candidates making endorsements for either Congressman Michele Jackson Lee or State Senator Whitmeyer? You know, that's an interesting question that I hadn't thought of. If I had to be a betting man, which I try not to be as a reporter, I would think that, you know, I would see Jack Christie probably endorsing Whitmeyer Garcia, I would assume would probably go for Jackson Lee, you know, they kind of built up a little tag team effort for lack of a better word and the best you make. But it's interesting. I think I'm going to watch to see if either of them will make an endorsement, should be interesting to see. Yeah, and this was a mayor's race that, you know, because of the two candidates that were getting all the attention and it just seemed like voters weren't excited about it and not that many voters honestly turned out, right? I saw a stat that Seattle has less registered voters and they had more of a turnout than the city of Houston. So what were your thoughts on that? What was the voter turnout like? Yeah. So voter turnout, when you look at wrong numbers, I mean, they were nice. Like the numbers themselves were good. But when you put them into context of the actual rate of turnout, not so great. We were at, we were below 2015, I don't know about 2019 numbers, but I know that we were below 2015 in the last time that we had an open seat in terms of voter turnout. So not that great, you know, more and more registered voters are moving into Harris County. So that number's going up. And so you see that wrong number rising and you're like, oh, this is great. And then you kind of put into context and you're like, the percentages don't, yeah. I don't know, like what happens that I think, like you mentioned, right, this, this was a race with two very big names, but with those names comes a lot of personality. You know, it comes a lot of, I read one political science professor kind of put it as though there was a name recognition, but there wasn't anything that really drew people to these candidates, you know, aside from that long time recognition. So you had people who were either firmly in the Whitmire camp, firmly in the Jackson Lee camp. There wasn't a lot of kind of vote grabbing, I would say from undecided voters, you know, they knew these names, neither of the names were particularly galvanizing, and so you kind of turned out with the, with the voter base that you would have come to expect in a municipal election. Let's talk about the actual election itself, smooth overall, right? There's enough paper ballots. We've heard that statement enough, but everything was good. But just following it on Tuesday night, you and I were talking about this a little bit, it was really smooth in terms of the returns. It was updating every hour or so, the early returns and mail-in ballots. Those came in at 715 roughly, so it was run really smoothly. So shout out to the county clerk and tax office for doing a great job. Yeah, it was pretty uneventful in terms of snaffles, you know, that could have happened. I think a lot of us were kind of had a, maybe a little bit of a side eye, like what's going to happen, you know, especially given that the county clerk and the tax assessor's office just kind of officially took over those duties earlier about two months ago. You know, there was maybe some questions of whether or not they could pull it together at that time. And I think largely they did, you know, I haven't heard any major concerns as of yet. My biggest thing was just sitting in my computer, hitting refresh all night long. Same here. The funniest thing, I was watching Channel 13 throughout the night, just checking in seeing what was happening. And they would, every so often go to NRG and show like, hey, look, you know, people were working around the clock, getting all your votes and the shot they were using, there was nobody working. And I just did not stop laughing, because I guess there were just, there's like two parts of the setup. There's one where the actual votes are coming in, the paper ballots, and you know, the running through the system. And then there's a, almost like a connected part where you got your laptops and stuff where everyone is updating the numbers. And every time they would go to the shot, everybody was working on the shot that they didn't have set up. So the tables were empty. And I'm just thinking, oh my gosh, if this election comes down to a few hundred votes or something, I can just see certain people getting mad, like, they weren't even doing anything at the elections, they weren't even doing anything at NRG counting the ballots. That is happening, but everything turned out okay. Yeah, thankfully, right? With something that we don't have to, to worry about this time around, I hope. Yeah. The hairs kind of only has like a couple of those vote counting machines. And so it's interesting, like, you know, they can only do so much, right? It's like you're at the back end call of technology, so. So my biggest story is obviously the election as well, but I want to focus a little bit more on the other races. Chris Hollins, Orlando Sanchez heading to a runoff as well for Houston Controller, the city controller office, 45.18% for Chris Hollins. And after the early returns, it looked like he could possibly get the 51% that was needed or just above 50%. And then the secondary third returns came in and it dropped him eventually to 45%. But talking to him last month, I think he anticipated a runoff as well against Orlando Sanchez. So here is, so that's a race we'll be watching as well. Now let's get to your amendments. We had you on talking amendments. Any surprises there for you in terms of what passed and what didn't pass? I think most of them did pass all the 14 amendments that we talked about, Prop 4 being the biggest one. Any thoughts on those? Yeah. So the only one that did not pass was that amendment 13 that we had talked about, which was raising the age of state judges, so that was the one out of out of 14 that didn't make the cut. Which, I mean, one could argue that that says something within itself, right, that if you want to place it in a broader context, you know, there's questions about on the national scale, the age of our next president, the age of our current president, there are questions, you know, conversations swirling around, whoever ends up being the next mayor of Houston will be in their 70s, you know, so people are calling it an inevitable Jaren Toppercy was what the Texas Monthly used a few months ago in an article. So it's an interesting point, right, you know, I think, you know, at least maybe in Texas, there was some pushback to that notion of older voices dominating the political landscape. I wasn't particularly shocked that most of them passed. I think that a lot of them appealed to a lot of different voters, right, we talked obviously Prop 4, people hear the words tax break and they're like, count me in, and then there's so much appeal to people's heartstrings, right, you know, raises for teachers, money for water and infrastructure projects, state parks, you know, things that I think people can feel good about rallying around, so I was a two-shot that most of them passed. I think Prop 7 was the one that got me, I didn't think it would pass, but I think I was a little bit more tuned into that proposition, you know, talking to Lauren Steffi, who's been a guest on the podcast and he was just like, wait, what are we doing with this? Everything's going to hit us, the consumer, and the big companies could benefit from this one, but the way it was framed, and I don't know if enough people did their research, it passed in, you know, flying colors, 64, almost 65% wanted Prop 7, and I was reading up on it a little bit like, how are the funds going to be used? That's exactly going to happen, and there's still a lot of question marks about Prop 7, it's mind blowing. Yeah, so Prop 7 was one that I think could have gone either way, but like you said, I think the way that they do way that the proposition was worded, you know, people here, oh, let's shore up our electric grid, and they're like, yes, like we need that. And also, I think I saw, I'm not sure how often this was done, but I saw a couple political ads that grouped, I want to say, with 78 and 9, or it grouped the electric grid, the water projects, and one other amendment kind of together as like you should pass these as a package deal. So that may have also influenced the voters. Okay, my favorite prop, Prop 12, there is no longer a Galveston County treasure. That one passes 52.98%. That one did pass, right? I think most of the votes from Galveston County did come in for a yes to a boat. That was a abolished acquisition. They did. Ron Swanson wins the day, okay? That was the one I was excited to vote for, even though my vote really didn't matter, but that one did pass. So no more county treasure in there. Yes, no more county treasure in Galveston, you know, Bayley Gavald's done, you know. Yeah, I love it. Okay, now let's get to our most overlooked story. So we talked a lot of election, we're going to switch gears a little bit, talk about other things that happened this week because it was still a busy week in the news cycle. What do you got for us? What was the most overlooked story? Yes, okay. So a little bit past this week, but I think it still warns us to talk about. So my colleague Monique Welch on Halloween, actually, she published a story about Q Patrol, which is this reincarnated community group that's patrolling Montrose on the weekends, you know, and making sure that the LGBTQ community feels safe when they kind of go out on the town. And I just showed this story because I had never heard of Q Patrol. So it's actually a reincarnation of a group from a few decades ago that they're bringing back just in light of the current political climate kind of across the state. But it's a group just kind of, they wear these pink t-shirts that have Q on the front, and they're just kind of doing a lot of name recognition work now trying to ensure that the community knows about them. And I just thought that was an interesting story that probably, you know, deserved some to be highlighted. Yeah. And the group was created in the 90s after the brutal and notorious murders of two gay men in Montrose, and the Q Patrol started, and, you know, they've been patrolling since and they had the break there. But they are back, as you mentioned, and I just love seeing them around as you mentioned. The pink t-shirts are great. You got to get that t-shirt. You got to be part of the Q Patrol, so there's like some branding there and to be part of it. But they also provide a lot of cool services like self-defense classes. So that is something that I think everyone should be doing. There should be more neighborhood patrolling. There should be more of a sense of neighborhood in all of our neighborhoods across the city of Houston and surrounding areas. And there should be more of that effort, right? And I love seeing that. And hopefully this inspires other neighborhoods. For sure, I think that there's kind of a yearning for that sense of community, right? We saw it not to tie everything back to the election, but we did see that a lot of candidates talked about community policing and what that could mean. And I think this is kind of, you know, this is an alternative format to that, right? You know, it's not necessarily uniform police officers, but it's a community coming together to ensure that people feel safe. You know, Q Patrol, they have mobile chargers, you can charge your phones, you can call yourself an Uber to get home if you need it. So I just thought it was a really neat idea that I wanted to bring here, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And one last thing I want to highlight with the Q Patrol, that's just really cool. And I think a lot of us need to do this is they take the time to go meet with their neighborhood police officers. They get to know them on a first name basis, which is really important. And it almost works hand in hand, right? So if you see the same officer patrolling your neighborhood, get to know them. Say hi to them. I love doing that. I'm patrolled by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office. So anytime I see the same vehicle, I'm like, I always stop them and they're like, oh, what is this guy want? But I'm like, hey, how are you doing? My name is Raheel and you know, good to see you and just get to know them because when you do need them, it's important to know like this officer is assigned to your community. So that's really cool. Okay. My most overlooked story of the week, we've been hearing about it for a while, Tim. But Mike Miles has finally unveiled HISD's plan to become a district of innovation. The HISD has 172 days of school and this plan would take them to 185, like other ISDs around the area for Ben and Spring Branch being the two biggest. This more days plan will mean that teachers will get a little bit more money, right? And Mike Miles did say that the compensation would be competitive, but didn't elaborate on it. So I'm hoping that it is a little bit more money in the pockets of teachers because it will be working more. But this plan is really important and it will be up for vote by the district advisory committee by December 14th. So they need to vote on this and HISD could get this designation which would make them a little bit more flexible in certain things like hiring uncertified teachers without seeking a waiver from the state, raising the number of elementary students allowed per teacher and they can develop their own teacher evaluation system which is going to be the most important thing because the union probably doesn't want that. There have been issues with previous attempts of getting a teacher evaluation system in house. So that's going to be something to watch out for, but we finally have that plan out there from Mike Miles. Yeah. And I think this plan has kind of been like you said a long time coming, you know. My colleagues, Asha and Miranda who have been on here before they have kind of been watching Mike Miles like a hawk for a lot of a better word. I'm interested to see what this will do for HISD. You know, I feel like HISD is just, it's such a tumultuous topic these days. You know, you're going to, I feel like no matter what, you're going to upset some people, you're going to find some people who are in favor of this. I think that the uncertified teachers gives me a little bit of pause, but I'm interested to see where this goes and if this gets final approval what it could mean for the district going forward. And for Mike Miles' tenure, you know, I think that's another question that's kind of been up in the air for lack of a better word. You know, how long will Miles be running HISD when I think that this would kind of extend that a little bit or just, it's just another, another tidbit of the plan that I find interesting for lack of a better word. Yeah, this is going to be interesting to see how this plays out now. Having a student in a district of innovation for Ben ISD, it does suck a little bit starting school like early August, but I do appreciate the extra days that my, you know, daughter has with her teachers and this is going to be another thing to watch out for. You know, if more money means more teachers working and hiring teachers, I don't know if there's a correlation there yet or not because Fort Ben ISD has staffing issues as well. I know our school does so that's another layer to watch out for it with this story. So we'll see how the committee votes on this one by December 14th, but the plan is officially out there. Okay, Tim, let's get your moment of joy. It was a busy week. What made you happy this week? Yes. No one of joy. Is it bad to say that it kind of took me a minute to find one? I mean, I think that, you know, not that I was miserable, but I think my mind has been so preoccupied. You know, we got elections, go lower, but one story that I found that I, you know, was like, oh, I love this. So a Houston organization, I found this in Houston Public Media, it's by Ashley Brown. Houston organization is actually going to be providing $5 million in grants for BIPOC arts groups around the city, which I thought was super cool. So the BIPOC Arts Network Fund, it's also called BAMS, which I thought was funny. They designated 11 local arts organizations as Houston cultural treasures. And so these different organizations that are focused on arts and culture are going to get a $5 million grant over two years to help with operational and technical support. So I just thought that was like such a cool thing, you know, I'm a writer, I love arts, love culture. I just thought, you know, we're seeing a divestment from that in schools across the country, just kind of historically, and I'm all for the arts funding. And so I just thought this was like a little gem to help invest in the Houston arts scene. That is so cool. For arts, the better and more investment means more creation. And I am all about creating more here in the city of Houston through the arts, through content, whatever it may be. So I love hearing that. That's a great moment of joy right there. Sure. Okay, for me, my moment of joy, look, we know that Harris County is diverse, but officially we are the most diverse county in Texas when it comes to ethnicities. According to a new release data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Harris County's population includes people from, take a guess how many ethnic groups, Tim, try to take a guess. Oh, God. Oh, God. I feel like I'm under like, what is it? 200 bucks? More? That's crazy. That's crazy. 364 ethnic groups are represented here in Harris County. How cool is that? That is so awesome to hear. And that number is dozens more than any county across the state, including 33 groups that are only found in Harris County. So we knew we were a diverse county, we knew we were a diverse suburban area as well Fort Bend is another one that has a lot of diversity, but I just found it so fascinating to see that there are 364 ethnic groups represented right here in our area. So shout out to this data and I've linked that in our show notes as I've done with all of our stories, but you can browse all 364 and it's so fascinating to see who is represented. Yeah, it's crazy. And as a, you know, I'm a Midwestern area born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, moving to Texas, specifically moving to Houston, that diversity is kind of like, you don't hear about it outside the area. I feel like everyone in Houston and in the region knows that we're kind of this hub of diversity, but outside it's like, I had no idea before I moved here that we had such a diverse community. And it's like, it's so interesting. It's a really fascinating piece of information. Yep, and that's what makes this area and this city so great. So I'd love seeing that. Tim, thank you so much for joining me today. That was a lot of fun recapping the election and other stories as well. Have a great weekend. Yes, you too. Thanks. Always love to be here. That was Tim Carlin. You can read all of his work on Houston Landing. That will do it for this week here on CityCast Houston. Our executive producer is Dina Kessba. Our producer is Carly on Jones. Our newsletter editor is Brooke Lewis and the host is me, Reheal Roomsonnelly. Our music is by the band, All the Kimonos. We'll be back on Monday with Health Insurance Tips as we enter renewal season. Thank you for listening and I hope you learned something new. My most overlooked story of the week is this one because I lost my document. But here we go.