In the election for the position of 63rd mayor of Houston, Texas State Senator John Whitmire emerged victorious over Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee thanks to his victory. Based on the preliminary tallies provided by the Harris County Clerk’s Office, it was determined that Whitmire had defeated Jackson Lee by a margin of 65% to 35%, with around 131,000 votes cast to begin with.
“The problems that plague great cities are solved. Our issues can be resolved if we work together. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step in finding a solution to it. “And I don’t mind telling folks what a great city we have, but we’ve got great challenges,” Whitmire said during his victory party, which was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in the central business district of Houston. “It will be an opportunity to demonstrate to the entire country what the city of Houston is capable of doing. We are not going to continue to throw our can down the road any longer.
Whitmire will enter the office of mayor of Houston with a half-century of experience in public service as an elected Democrat, despite the fact that the election for mayor of Houston was officially nonpartisan.
Ever since Whitmire made his initial public announcement that he intended to run for mayor more than two years ago, he has continuously been in the lead in the majority of polls on all occasions. The most recent – the Houston Public Media/Houston Chronicle/University of Houston Political Science and Population Health Poll, conducted after the first round of voting – showed several trends that seem to have ultimately worked in Whitmire’s favor. Two demographics that are more likely than others to participate in municipal runoff elections are older white voters and conservatives. The senator had a big lead among these two groups of voters.
Jackson Lee’s primary constituency, black voters, did not exhibit the same level of support for the congresswoman in the first round of the mayoral campaign as they did for Sylvester Turner, the current mayor, during his first victory in 2015. This is a significant difference. In the election that is currently taking place, Turner had endorsed Jackson Lee. The majority of Latino voters supported Whitmire, which was another factor that worked in his favor. Additionally, in the poll conducted by Houston Public Media, Whitmire was ranked first among male voters, but he was tied for first place among female voters, thereby penetrating yet another crucial Jackson Lee support bloc.
In her concession speech, Jackson Lee said that she was grateful for every vote, and said of Whitmire that she “commit to working with him, because as I saw the city and listened to all of you, I know that our ideas can put this city in the future, as I have said.”
Through a poll conducted by Houston Public Media, the most pressing concerns of voters were identified. Thirty-five percent of people who are likely to vote were polled, and they responded that the most important topic in the race was crime.
With the promise that he would bring 200 state troopers to Houston while the city hired and trained hundreds more police officers, Whitmire made the fight against crime and the improvement of public safety the central focus of his campaign. Despite the fact that Jackson Lee also discussed the significance of public safety, she took a more nuanced approach, putting more of an emphasis on the generation of employment opportunities and the intervention of violent behavior in order to address some of the fundamental reasons for criminal behavior.
To put it into perspective, 18% of respondents polled stated that the economy is the most significant issue that the future mayor will have to deal with. Fourteen percent pointed to the cost of housing, while 10% said the city’s finances were their chief concern.
After winning election to the Texas House of Representatives for the first time in 1972, Whitmire went on to win election to the Texas Senate five years later in 1982. He was first appointed chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in 1993 and continued to hold the post long after Republicans took over the chamber. He is now the member who has served the longest, earning him the unofficial title of “Dean of the Senate.”
Whitmire is the former brother-in-law of Kathy Whitmire, who served as Houston’s mayor from 1982 to 1991.
“We will make this a safer city,” Whitmire said of his plans going forward. “We will do it by recruiting more officers, supporting the officers we have, the coalition building with other agencies. Our infrastructure will be repaired and fixed, not only streets but water. Great cities do not boil their water for two days.”
