Sylvester Turner spent more than 20 years in the Texas State Legislature, had two terms as mayor, and now he’s bound for Washington D.C. as the congressman representing U.S. House District 18.
In a race that was already won before the first ballot was cast, according to most political prognosticators, the Democratic former mayor acquitted himself well, securing 70.2 percent of the vote compared to the 29.8 percent his GOP challenger Lana Centonze garnered. The Associated Press called the race with 68 percent of the vote tallied on Tuesday night.
The real race for this seat played out months ago, first in March when the 15-term U.S Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee beating back a challenge for the nod from former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards. But when Lee died in July of pancreatic cancer, her seat was suddenly up for grabs, and everybody, including Edwards and Turner, tried to snag it. Turner prevailed in the August special election, and that was that for this solidly blue district.
Meanwhile, the other Houston-area House races played out pretty much as expected. The GOP incumbent, Dan Crenshaw, won his District 2 re-election bid.
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, District 7, fended off Republican challenger Caroline Kane with 61.5 percent of the vote when the AP called the race with 75 percent of the votes processed.
In fact, all the incumbents had an easy night, with District 8’s GOP Rep. Morgan Luttrell, District 14’s Republican Rep. Randy Weber, District 22’s GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, District 36’s GOP Rep. Brian Babin and District 38’s Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt all securing comfortable victories. Although the race for District 29’s Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia hadn’t been called yet, she led with 66.3 percent of the vote and 61 percent of the total vote reported.
Rep. Al Green, the Democrat who has held his District 9 seat since 2005 was unopposed and thus had the easiest night of them all.
Meanwhile, as the vote counting process in other states doesn’t move nearly as fast as ours, it was still unclear whether the Republicans managed to keep hold of the House or if the Democrats managed to flip it back into their hands.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
