Houston mayoral runoff held today: TURNER (D) WINS

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Houston just barely enters Fort Bend County. The Fort Bend County portion is tiny compared to the Harris County portion.

Unless of course Houston recently annexed a bunch of Fort Bend County.

[Adam Griffin]

Houston just barely enters Fort Bend County. The Fort Bend County portion is tiny compared to the Harris County portion.

Unless of course Houston recently annexed a bunch of Fort Bend County.

West of this line, roughly, is Fort Bend County:

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Much worse than any of this, it appears Houston extends into Montgomery County, which can't be good at all.

[MT Treasurer]

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Dominating but underperforming Romney 2012 as well as Abbott and Cornyn 2014.

[Skye]

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Dominating but underperforming Romney 2012 as well as Abbott and Cornyn 2014.

But Montgomery has other cities... this is only for the Houston section in the county, as opposed to the whole county.

[/]

50.5-40.5 Turner lead with 82.8% precincts reporting

come on come on come on

[MT Treasurer]

96% in

Turner   105,963   (50.8%)
King       102,459   (49.2%)

Turner probably has this.

[Adam Griffin]

Anybody know what "Houston City Council District J" looks like? That's where a disproportionate share of outstanding ballots appears to be. One City Council candidate there is leading by almost 2:1.

[Adam Griffin]

Anybody know what "Houston City Council District J" looks like? That's where a disproportionate share of outstanding ballots appears to be. One City Council candidate there is leading by almost 2:1.

Looked it up: SW side of the city, right outside 610. Is that a Democratic area?

[Kingpoleon]

There's about 8,500 left. If this narrows to under 3,000, I'd support a double recount, or as many recounts as it takes to have somebody win the vote twice in a row.

[Kushahontas]

Anybody know what "Houston City Council District J" looks like? That's where a disproportionate share of outstanding ballots appears to be. One City Council candidate there is leading by almost 2:1.

63% Hispanic, 18% black, working class.

[tpfkaw]

Anybody know what "Houston City Council District J" looks like? That's where a disproportionate share of outstanding ballots appears to be. One City Council candidate there is leading by almost 2:1.

Looked it up: SW side of the city, right outside 610. Is that a Democratic area?

It's 100% reporting, but the winning incumbent is a Democrat and the losing candidate is a Republican.

[MT Treasurer]

Harris County right now:

Turner: 50.02%
King: 49.98%

#2012redux

[Adam Griffin]

Anybody know what "Houston City Council District J" looks like? That's where a disproportionate share of outstanding ballots appears to be. One City Council candidate there is leading by almost 2:1.

Looked it up: SW side of the city, right outside 610. Is that a Democratic area?

It's 100% reporting, but the winning incumbent is a Democrat and the losing candidate is a Republican.

Oh, perhaps there was a lag on the site - I see that's 100% now, too.

Yeah, this is likely over. Remaining votes would need to be at least 75% King in order for him to tie.

[MT Treasurer]

100% in, ABC13 calls it for Turner.

Turner   108,389  (51%)

King    104,307  (49%)

[smoltchanov]

Well, Turner finally (on 3rd attempt) won, albeit - very narrowly. And i already see standard wailings on Democratic sites (like DKE) - "our electrate does'n vote in elections, except Presidential". The same was recently, when Democrats lost state Senate seat in Georgia, which is D+20 on Presidential level.... But i have a question for such "wailers": why ANYONE must care about these people, their rights and interests if they themselves doesn't care??? If they are too lazy to get their asses from chairs and vote for those, who WILL really represent them. My views now are substantially closer to Democratic party then to modern day Republican, but i respect Republican voters for understanding what they want and how to achieve that. And have absolutely no respect for those "lazy Democrats", who are wailing instead of voting...

[Maxwell]

I agree with smolty actually - Democrats gotta turn out their people.

But Turner winning is good enough.

[Kingpoleon]

Well, Turner finally (on 3rd attempt) won, albeit - very narrowly. And i already see standard wailings on Democratic sites (like DKE) - "our electrate does'n vote in elections, except Presidential". The same was recently, when Democrats lost state Senate seat in Georgia, which is D+20 on Presidential level.... But i have a question for such "wailers": why ANYONE must care about these people, their rights and interests if they themselves doesn't care??? If they are too lazy to get their asses from chairs and vote for those, who WILL really represent them. My views now are substantially closer to Democratic party then to modern day Republican, but i respect Republican voters for understanding what they want and how to achieve that. And have absolutely no respect for those "lazy Democrats", who are wailing instead of voting...

Democrats are great, Republicans are evil. If you're a communist, progressive, liberal, moderate, or ordinary conservative, you should be voting Democratic. Why isn't this strategy working?

[jimrtex]

This is a map of the results, sorta like Belfast.



This doesn't show the Fort Bend results, very small but very much for Turner (93%).

In Harris and Montgomery counties, it was Turner 50.16% to King 49.84%.

[jimrtex]

Will King be able to annex the surrounding suburban areas to create a permanent conservative majority? Or will the city council get in the way?

Most areas outside the city don't want to be annexed to Houston.

They have worked out a deal where Houston annexes commercial property, in something called a "limited annexation". The city collects sales taxes, but not property taxes, and there is an agreement about what services the city will provide.  Those blue spots northwest of Houston along most major streets are "limited annexations".



The limited annexation areas typically don't have residential property but they have some. In the 2010 census, the census bureau somehow missed some areas, which resulted in Houston having less than 2.1 million persons - which would have triggered expansion of the city council. The city appealed and was successful in finding enough people to put it over 2.1 million.

If Houston annexes an area it has to bring services up to the city levels. So areas that would like to be annexed, because Houston would have to run sewer lines, and rebuild the streets, Houston does not want to annex these areas, because they have more expenses than revenue.

And since the Kingwood annexation, the state law requires cities to have annexation plans, which permits the targets to organize opposition.