Male judicial candidates had a tough election night
Five Democratic state district judges in Harris County lost their seats to primary challengers on Tuesday. The common thread: All five were men unseated by women of color.
Civil court judges Larry Weiman, Daryl Moore and Steven Kirkland were defeated by Democratic challengers Jeralynn Manor, Brittanye Morris and Dawn Rogers, respectively. Criminal court judges Randy Roll and George Powell lost to Democrats Ana Martinez and Natalia Cornelio.
No male candidate finished above a female candidate across Harris County’s 11 contested district judge races.
The results reflect a reality up and down the Democratic ballot in Harris County: Female candidates held a decided advantage over their male counterparts, especially near the end of the ballot, where voters typically know less about the candidates.
During early voting, women made up 58 percent of Harris County’s Democratic primary electorate — compared with 51 percent of the Republican primary vote. That creates a built-in advantage for female candidates, but it does not fully explain why women dominated the judicial races, policy consultant Jay Aiyer said.
“I think there’s a growing recognition that it’s important to have a judiciary and elected officials who reflect diversity, at least from a gender perspective,” Aiyer said. “For a long time, there was a bias against women candidates, and I think it’s probably fair to say that there is now a bias for women candidates.”
On Tuesday, Harris County hosted 24 Democratic state district court primaries, which were decided by countywide vote.
In 13 contests, the in
cumbent judge ran unopposed. And in the sole open contest, criminal defense lawyer Colleen Gaido won with 58 percent of the vote, while her three male opponents failed to break 18 percent, according to unofficial results.
Otherwise, three female incumbents won re-election. Two were forced into runoffs by other women, and in both cases, a third male candidate finished in last place.
Arguably the most striking aspect of the five remaining races were the challengers’ margins of victory. Martinez beat Roll with 80 percent of the vote, while Kirkland was the only defeated male incumbent to clear 40 percent. He finished with 45 percent.
Powell, the lone AfricanAmerican male incumbent to lose re-election to the district court bench in Harris County, secured a place on the ballot after the Harris County Democratic Party initially denied his application over a filing fee dispute. He lost to Cornelio by about 28 percentage points.
Few of those contests involved major ideological disputes between the candidates, Aiyer said. Some voters likely leaned toward the judicial hopeful they saw as most aligned with their own background or characteristics.
“I think it was purely a situation where, for the most part, voters have very little information about candidates, particularly judicial candidates,” Aiyer said. “And so there’s a tendency to rely on affinity voting.”
Without Republican opposition in the fall, Morris and Martinez effectively were elected to the bench Tuesday. The other three will face a Republican opponent in November, though Democratic judges have swept judicial contests in recent cycles amid favorable conditions atop the ballot.
Some lawyers and legal observers were dismayed by the results, noting that a few of the unseated judges were experienced and wellregarded.
“So disappointed and angry that Harris County Dem voters chose judges by gender rather than by competence,” tweeted Mary Flood, a legal media consultant. “Best civil district judge Daryl Moore gone. Some terrible civil & criminal district judges who happen to be female get to stay. As many of us say often, this has to stop.”
Houston lawyer Jason Truitt expressed a similar sentiment about the loss of experience, and noted that one of the judges headed to a runoff, Alexandra SmootsThomas,
“I think there’s a growing recognition that it’s important to have a judiciary and elected officials who reflect diversity, at least from a gender perspective. For a long time, there was a bias against women candidates, and I think it’s probably fair to say that there is now a bias for women candidates.” Jay Aiyer, policy consultant
was indicted on federal wire fraud charges in November over allegations that she spent campaign donations on personal expenses.
Michelle Tremillo, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, noted that the Harris County Democratic early vote was made up of 60 percent women and 34 percent women of color.
She said that while voters do tend to gravitate toward candidates who reflect gender and racial diversity, their choices also are rooted in “values” — such as supporting candidates who they are confident would back Harris County’s historic bail reform agreement.
“People do want to see elected officials who are reflective of them,” Tremillo said. “And I do think that the very public fight over bail reform also plays a role there, that it would be important to have someone who’s reflective of the community.”
For now, women make up 34 of the 63 district court judicial seats in Harris County. They narrowly outnumber men, 14-12, on the civil bench, but are outnumbered 15-8 in the criminal courts. There are nine female and two male family court judges, and all three juvenile court judges are women.
On the Republican side, where there was just one incumbent, all 12 district court primaries involved only one candidate, and five of the candidates were women. The party did not have a candidate in the other 12 courts, meaning the Democratic nominee was all but elected to those seats on Tuesday.
Jesse McClure, the lone incumbent, was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott in November to replace Maria Jackson, who unsuccessfully challenged Commissioner Rodney Ellis in the Democratic primary. He will face the winner of a runoff between Democrats Te’iva Bell and Candance White.