Defeated candidate in Pearland blames ‘cultural identity’ fears
PEARLAND — The smiling young woman walking up Rodney Heath’s driveway wore an orange hijab that matched her campaign T-shirt.
She didn’t need to introduce herself to Heath, who greeted her warmly, pointing to the “I voted” sticker on his shirt.
“You’ve got our vote,” Heath told Dalia Kasseb, who was in her final day of block-walking Saturday in her bid for a Pearland City Council seat. “It’s time to give somebody else a chance to lead.”
It was a nice moment in an exhausting day for Kasseb, 30, a pharmacist who was the first openly Muslim candidate for public office in Brazoria County.
While she chatted with Heath, mayoral candidate Quentin Wiltz knocked on doors across the street, trying to get supporters to the polls in Saturday’s runoff election.
Kasseb and Wiltz, 36, a pipeline company executive who is African-American, hoped to bring new ideas — and more diversity — to local government in this rapidly growing suburb south of Houston. But when the votes were counted, Mayor Tom Reid, 91, who has led the city for more than 30 years, had been returned to office. Former Councilman Woody Owens, 69, defeated Kasseb.
Wiltz and Kasseb lost by almost identical margins, roughly 60 percent to 40 percent. What’s remarkable, though, is that Kasseb, who placed first among seven candidates in the May general election, drew almost twice as many votes Saturday as she had in May.
A first-place finisher whose runoff vote total exceeded the original ordinarily would be assured of victory, because turnout tends to drop in the second round. In this case, though, the usual pattern was turned on its head. Owens, who earned a runoff spot with a distant secondplace finish in May, got five times as many votes Saturday as on May 6.
All told, more than 13,000 people — roughly 19 percent of Pearland’s registered voters — participated in the runoff, up from about 7,300 in the first round. That’s four times the turnout of Pearland’s last mayoral race in 2014.
“It’s extraordinary, and I
think it’s a backlash,” said Rice University political science professor Robert Stein.
Stein suspects that Wiltz’s and Kasseb’s strong showings in May, and news coverage highlighting Kasseb’s faith and Wiltz’s race, prompted many older, conservative residents who hadn’t bothered to vote in May to do so Saturday.
Energized voters
What motivated these newly energized voters is a matter of speculation. Saturday’s runoff occurred on the same day that hundreds of people, some armed and carrying Confederate flags, marched against a perceived threat to a statue of Sam Houston in Hermann Park. In cities around the country, meanwhile, people gathered to denounce the Islamic legal and moral code known as Shariah law, saying it threatens American freedoms.
Perhaps some Pearland residents saw coverage of the protests on TV, worried about seeing these influences in their home town, and decided to get off their couches and go vote.
Wiltz, for his part, said turnout was high because “people felt like they had a choice.” But he agreed that many longtime residents on the city’s historic east side were driven by “fear of losing what Pearland used to be.”
What are people afraid of losing? I said.
“Cultural identity,” he replied.
Party loyalty a factor
That’s a polite way of putting it. Wiltz and Kasseb said they encountered no hostility while knocking on thousands of doors during the campaign, although Wiltz mentioned that some voters didn’t understand why he had a problem with a car horn that repeatedly played “Dixie” at a polling place.
But on social media, where ugliness thrives, fear and hostility were evident in anti-Muslim posts shared around the community — some subtle, some quite blunt. Some of the anti-Muslim posts were shared on Owens’ Facebook page, though he denied having posted them.
In addition, party loyalty was a strong factor. Local elections are officially nonpartisan, but Wiltz was endorsed by the state Democratic Party, and Reid drew support from prominent Republican elected officials. Despite their increasing diversity, Houston’s suburbs are a deep shade of red.
Pearland’s post-election governing body will consist of an Anglo mayor and a city council of five Anglos, one African-American and one Latino — all male. The city of about 120,000 residents is about 46 percent white, 21 percent Latino, 17 percent black and 13 percent Asian.
The absence of any single-member districts — all seven council members are elected citywide — no doubt contributes to the disparity, but Saturday’s results show some of the other factors at play. This dynamic is likely to prevail until the desire for change overcomes the fear of it.