Texas House
Special elections for area Districts 148 and 28 appear headed to a runoff.
Two Houston-area races for the Texas House of Representatives appear headed to a runoff Tuesday evening after no candidate was close to securing a majority of votes.
In Houston’s House District 148, Democrat Anna Eastman and Republican Luis La Rotta were leading shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m. Democrat Adrian Garcia, not to be confused with the incumbent Harris County commissioner, trailed in third. The results remained the same at midnight, when Harris County had reported 8 percent of voting sites.
With all precincts reporting in Fort Bend County, Democrat Eliz Markowitz led six Republican challengers in House District 28. Gary Gates and Tricia Krenek were in second and third, respectively.
If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff election in December.
National Democrats poured money into the District 28 race, hoping to wrest the seat from longtime Republican control en route to flipping the Texas House in 2020. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz won the district by just three points over Beto O’Rourke in 2018. O’Rourke, who recently ended his bid for president, campaigned earlier this year for Markowitz.
Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones said Markowitz
has reasons to be gleeful: Her first place finish will likely encourage Democrats to invest more money in the race, and she will more easily be able to contrast herself with Gates than the other Republicans in the race.
“With Gates, you have a younger, liberal woman against an older Anglo male conservative who has a long track record in Republican politics,” Jones said.
Houston Democratic strategist Keir Murray said that though a majority of voters chose a Republican candidate in the first round of balloting, Markowitz has a chance at victory in the runoff.
“There’s room to get Democrats who didn’t show up in the first round for a runoff, if a win seems possible,” Murray said.
Incumbent Republican John Zerwas, who was first elected in 2006, resigned his District 28 seat in September and accepted a position as a vice chancellor at the University of Texas. Democrat Jessica Farrar, who was first elected to the Heights-area district in 1994, retired from District 148 in September.