Results are unclear if mayor will face Buzbee in a runoff for second term
Mayor Sylvester Turner held a wide lead over Tony Buzbee in limited early returns late Tuesday and was within striking distance of an outright re-election win, though it was unclear at press time if he would secure enough votes to avoid a runoff.
Buzbee, a millionaire trial lawyer, jumped out to an early second-place lead that he appeared likely to retain over Bill King, an attorney and businessman who narrowly lost a 2015 runoff to Turner but struggled this time to compete financially with Buzbee, his main rival for conservative votes.
With a small share of Election
Day precincts reporting, Turner remained a shade under the majority vote share he would need to avoid a December runoff against Buzbee.
Councilman Dwight Boykins, who competed with Turner for the support of Democratic and black voters, trailed in fourth place, while former councilwoman Sue Lovell was further behind in fifth. Seven other candidates combined for the remaining share of the vote.
Just after 10 p.m., Turner stepped to the stage of the thirdfloor ballroom at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, surrounded by local and state officials, including Sen. John Whitmire, D
Houston, and U.S. Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, all Democrats, as the crowd yelled, “Four more years!”
“The numbers are very, very, very encouraging, in fact, I would say they are super encouraging,” Turner said. “We’re almost there. We know it’s going to be a long evening … but today was an incredible day of voting.”
He predicted the surge of voters Tuesday, stretching outside some precincts well past 7 p.m., would bode well for his re-election.
“I just believe that the voting today will be good for the Turner campaign,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night, but I just think it’s going to be a good night.”
Buzbee was on the stage of his watch party at 10 p.m., describing a humble upbringing in a small East Texas town and the feeling of now running to be Houston’s mayor.
“We’re gonna make the runoff,” he said. “We are going to win.”
Watching was a celebratory crowd of supporters wearing gold “I voted for Tony Buzbee” stickers handed to them when they arrived at the Crowne Plaza hotel near NRG Stadium.
Buzbee, wearing his Marines camouflage shirt over a black Tshirt, told his mother he loved her, and his campaign treasurer how great he was and, taking time to get to the point, described himself as the man to represent people who have been overlooked.
“Our city deserves better than what we have now,” he yelled out before exiting the stage.
King had not yet conceded Tuesday evening, but he left his election night party at Cadillac Bar shortly before 10 p.m. after acknowledging the grim-looking results.
“We live in a very discouraging political time,” King said. “We live in a time when the hyper-partisan, loud-striking horses are prevailing in this country. It looks like they may prevail in this election tonight, although there’s still a lot of votes to be counted.”
Turner likely will gain ground when Fort Bend County results post, though it was too early to tell if that would be enough for the mayor to win outright, said Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs.
Still, she said, the early results show “there’s no sense of urgency in trying to replace the mayor.” And Turner, a Democrat, would have a bigger partisan runoff edge than he did in his narrow 2015 win, Cross added.
“The national mood is definitely supporting Democrats,” she said. “We see that in the returns in other states. The gubernatorial upset in Kentucky and the Democrats taking the Legislature in Virginia is evidence of that.”
The election follows months of spirited campaigning by Turner and his top foes, who have taken sharp aim at the mayor’s firstterm record managing the city’s $5 billion budget, Hurricane Harvey recovery and a labor dispute with the Houston firefighters union.
Turner has fiercely defended his record, arguing that he aptly guided the city through Harvey and helped close wide budget gaps by reforming the city’s troubled pension systems. He also has continued to contend that the city cannot afford pay raises secured by the firefighters through a ballot referendum, which a judge later overturned.
Preempting a widely anticipated rematch between Turner and King, Buzbee entered the race in October 2018 and wasted no time ramping up his attacks on Turner, accusing the mayor of engaging in corruption and cronyism — a charge Turner denies.
King announced his candidacy in February and built his platform around the same topic, while reprising his “back to basics” campaign theme from 2015, when he lost a runoff to Turner by about 2 percentage points.
Until early September, when he began participating in candidate forums, Turner largely ignored his foes, responding to them only through campaign spokespeople. Once he began clashing directly with his opponents, however, Turner focused his attacks on Buzbee, perceiving the deeppocketed lawyer as his greatest threat.
Buzbee is self-financing his entire campaign and has vastly outspent Turner and the rest of the field, disbursing $8.7 million of the $10 million he had poured into his campaign account through late October.
Buzbee has portrayed himself as nonpartisan and independent, insisting he wants to talk about his plan for the city instead of getting caught up in partisan labels. Turner has worked particularly hard to tie Buzbee to President Donald Trump, however, noting that Buzbee once hosted a fundraiser for Trump and donated to his inauguration.