On the heels of a second-place finish in the Democratic primary for Harris County judge, Letitia Plummer has mounted a comeback and is counting on her popularity with young, Black voters as residents head to the polls — again — next week.
Can Plummer get enough votes to pull off an upset? Political strategists say probably not, but it hinges heavily on who shows up to vote.
Renee Cross, senior executive director and researcher at the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs, says primary runoffs are usually dominated by “white voters and older voters,” and in the case of the Harris County judge’s Democratic primary, that’s who favors Plummer’s opponent, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker.
Plummer, a former two-term Houston City Council member, is facing Parker in a May 26 primary runoff. Early voting begins May 18 and continues through May 22. Voters can cast ballots in a runoff even if they didn’t vote in the March primary, but if they did vote in March, they have to stick with the same party as their original ballot.
Parker got the most votes in the March primary but fell just shy of the required 50 percent to avoid a runoff. Both candidates have experience in elected leadership roles. Plummer says her experience is more current and she’s more progressive. Parker says her experience in public office spans decades and she’s the better choice for consensus-building.
The GOP primary for county judge is also in a runoff between former Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez and insurance businessman Warren Howell. Sanchez garnered 26.46 percent of the vote in March, and Howell got 20.79 percent, surprising those who thought Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association union leader Marty Lancton would make the runoff.
The winners of the primary runoffs will face off in November. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, is not seeking re-election. Neither Sanchez nor Howell responded to an interview request from the Houston Press.
Plummer, a dentist, was elected to an at-large seat on the Houston City Council in 2019 and re-elected in 2023. She was the first to propose an immigration ordinance at the city level and a policy targeting unsafe apartment complexes. Both initiatives passed after she left City Hall to run for judge.
But it’s not what Plummer did on council that has her supporters desperate to get her elected. It’s that they’re concerned about moderate or establishment-oriented politicians who they say represent the “old guard.”
Parker critics have pointed out that the former mayor supported red-light cameras and the state takeover of Houston ISD in 2023 and that she hasn’t taken a strong stance against the presence of immigration agents in Houston. To be fair, the state takeover occurred while Parker was serving as president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, not in an elected capacity. Additionally, cities and counties are limited in their authority when it comes to federal immigration policy.
Parker has said her early comments about the HISD takeover “were made as a frustrated parent at a time when she believed the district’s elected board was dysfunctional.” She has since criticized the state’s handling of the takeover and called for the return of an elected board of trustees, according to Texas Scorecard.
Hidalgo has pointed out Parker’s ties to former Harris County Attorney Kim Ogg and Houston Mayor John Whitmire — both of whom were admonished by the Harris County Democratic Party — and said that Parker “would govern as a Republican.” Hidalgo has not, however, endorsed Plummer.
When Hidalgo made her remarks in December 2025, Parker released a statement saying, “My record of public service – stable, responsible, drama-free leadership – speaks for itself. These questions have all been asked and answered. I’m running to fight Donald Trump and [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott, not to engage in Democratic infighting.”
Plummer says her current record of service and experience as a small business owner for 25 years better qualify her for the position of county judge. “My opponent says I don’t have the experience and we need someone who’s been in politics for 18 years. I beg to differ,” Plummer says. “The average age in the county is 37 years old. We need someone with enough lived experience to handle all the stresses but also someone who knows what people are feeling. I’ve been on the ground recently with all the storms. My opponent has been gone for 10 years.”
Plummer, 55, is the daughter of a Yemeni-Persian mother and an African-American father. Parker, 70, is considered a trailblazer for becoming the first openly gay mayor of Houston in 2010.
A University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll released last week has Parker leading Plummer by 18 percentage points, but Plummer leads by 26 percentage points among Black voters and the two are deadlocked among voters under the age of 55.
Other key findings include:
- Parker leads Plummer by 46 percentage points among white voters (68 percent to 22 percent) and by 29 percentage points among Latino likely voters (60 percent to 31 percent).
- Parker holds a substantial 59 percent to 33 percent lead among the two-thirds of voters who are age 55 and older.
- Parker leads Plummer by 28 percentage points among voters with four-year college degrees (59 percent to 31 percent), and by 8 percentage points among likely voters who do not have a four-year college degree (49 percent to 41 percent).
- Sixty-nine percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Parker and 17 percent have an unfavorable opinion, with 14 percent not knowing enough about her to have an opinion.
- Fifty-five percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Plummer and 8 percent have an unfavorable opinion, with 37 percent not knowing enough about her to have an opinion.
Cross said Hobby School polls are recognized as among the most accurate in the nation and it’s likely that Parker will win the runoff. The fact that UH didn’t poll voters on the GOP runoff indicates that data points to a Democrat winning the judge’s race in November. But, Cross says, anything can happen.
“A survey is a reflection of where people stand during that particular period,” she says. “Let’s say another Hurricane Beryl comes through next week. A tragedy or disaster like that can affect how people end up voting on Election Day. Any poll is just a snapshot. It will be difficult [for Plummer] to erase a high double-digit lead like we’re seeing in this poll. However, it’s not impossible.”
Because the highly competitive Congressional District 18 Democratic primary runoff between Congressmen Al Green and Christian Menefee is also on the May 26 ballot, that will boost Black voter participation, Cross says. But there’s only a one-week early voting period and Election Day is the day after the Memorial Day holiday. Also, there’s voter fatigue from the dozens of elections that have been held over the past year, Cross says.
Plummer says she’s counting on the Congressional District 18 voters to show up for her. “That’s my base,” she says. “Those folks know my name. I’ve done most of my work in those Black and Brown communities. They know how hard I fought for transportation equity. I think people just need to remember that we can’t fix today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. [Parker] is yesterday. Her mindset is of yesterday. Her thought process is dated.”
In addition to serving in a leadership role during hurricanes and ice storms, Plummer was a council member during what she says was “the biggest public safety nightmare we’ve ever had,” the death of Houston native George Floyd. Hundreds of protesters took to the Houston streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following a May 2020 incident in Minneapolis in which Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.
“I’m the one who forced [then-Mayor Sylvester Turner] to put forward the 8 Can’t Wait [use of force policy recommendations] and to create a task force,” Plummer said. “I’m the one who stood alone with our constituents to force council to vote on a reallocation of HPD funds to be able to invest in policing in a different way. I put a budget amendment forward of $3 million to reallocate [money from] vacancies to educating our officers, helping them understand cultural differences and disparities when it comes to who we’re policing.”
The budget amendment didn’t pass but it started a conversation about community policing that was timely and necessary, Plummer says.
Cross says the Harris County judge’s race is vitally important because one of the primary responsibilities is to oversee emergency and disaster operations. “Harris County is so huge and has such an outside influence on all matters in the state of Texas,” she says.
Parker frequently says in campaign events, “If there is a hurricane turning in the Gulf, who do you want standing beside you?” The implication is that, with six years as an at-large city council member, six years as Houston’s elected city controller and six years as mayor under her belt, Parker has led Houston through multiple disasters.
The day after the March primary, Parker told the Press she was confident she’d win the runoff. “I’ve had a significant polling lead over [Plummer] since the day I announced back in June [2025],” she said. “The people are engaged. I think it’s going to be a great year for Democrats.”
According to Parker’s website, while serving as mayor, she “kept the city’s economy growing through the toughest recession in a generation. She balanced multi-billion-dollar budgets without raising taxes or laying off police and firefighters. She created the Hire Houston First program because she knows everyone who wants to work deserves the chance to earn a good-paying job.”
Parker also takes credit for helping create the city’s first dedicated fund to pay for flood prevention and road repairs and Houston’s first Sobering Center to “keep people who just need treatment out of the criminal justice system.”
Parker says the county judge is supposed to be the glue that holds the county government together, and the Harris County Commissioners Court has not been operating that way for a while. “It’s about relationships. It’s about communication,” she says. “It’s about coordination. It’s about buckling down and focusing on the administration of the county.”
Plummer says Harris County isn’t broken, but it’s fractured and she’d like to look closely at how money is being spent. “We spend millions of dollars on consultant fees and typically we don’t implement their recommendations timely enough because they’re dated,” she said. “Our procurement methods are fractured. I don’t think we’re focusing enough on building the capacity that’s necessary. We’re not getting the shovels in the ground on our infrastructure projects fast enough.”
“I believe we can fix the problems,” she adds. “We just have to get someone in there who’s not status quo. They’ve had a chance to fix the problems and they didn’t. I just don’t think it makes sense. It’s actually the definition of insanity. [Parker] has served in all these positions with all of this experience, but we’re still flooding the same way we did before. I believe I’m the only person in this race who will take the time to look at the root causes of the challenges that we’re seeing.”
While Parker has been referred to as “the Whitmire whisperer” in reference to her friendship with the mayor, she says he clearly didn’t take her advice to create a banner district in Montrose when the state ordered that rainbow crosswalks be removed. Plummer says she’s a “true blue” Democrat and no one has ever questioned her allegiance to the party. “I’m clearly the more progressive candidate in this race,” she says.
Cross says Parker and Plummer are both very well-liked. “That in itself, I think, is rather unusual, especially in today’s political world, that you have two candidates that people like,” she says. “You compare that to the U.S. Senate Republican candidates. [Ken] Paxton and [John] Cornyn aren’t as universally well-liked.”
Neither Parker nor Plummer has had a scandal or done something so egregious that an entire population turned against them, Cross says. That’s also unusual, especially for Parker, because she held elected office for so many years. “It’s usually easy to point to something that opponents can really go to town with,” Cross says. “That’s just not the case here. There are some things she’s done that will come out either in the runoff or the general election but nothing at the level of, say, a Ken Paxton.”
