Thread by @ryanc_2025

Why I think (as of right now) John Whitmire is favored to be Houston's next mayor.

Houston had a mayoral election last night. The top two candidates, John Whitmire and Shelia Jackson Lee advanced to a runoff happening later in December. Here's why I think SJL loses in December.

For starters, last night, John Whitmire won the mail vote, early vote, AND Election Day vote. He won the White and Asian vote while SJL won the Black vote. Whitmire and SJL were pretty split with the Hispanic vote.

Turnout was high in the majority white areas of the "Houston Arrow" while the majority black areas of 3rd and 5th Wards lagged behind. map courtesy of @cinyc9

Houston City Council District G will most likely be the most competitive district in December. It's gotten a lot of media attention and so turnout in that district will most likely be quite high. That will benefit Whitmire as he won that district handily last night.

Add onto the factors that Whitmire has vastly outraised SJL in money, has polled consistently in Houston, and got quite close to winning the race outright, I'd rather be John Whitmire.

In order to win, SJL will have to maximize Black turnout in a city where doing so has proven quite difficult for Democrats in recent election cycles. With the runoff being in December turnout is expected to drop significantly.

In order for Whitmire to win, he's going to need to keep his coalition of White, Asian, and Republican voters of Houston while also performing better with Hispanics. Whitmire's base of support historically has higher turnout and are higher propensity voters than SJL's voter base

The Houston Mayoral runoff is on December 9th and I encourage all Houstonians to vote for @whitmire_john for mayor of Houston! Let's bring common sense back to Houston!