Saturday’s Election
Congratulations to my State Senator-Elect Molly Cook for her outstanding victory garnering 57.23% of the vote or 9,330 votes to 6,973 votes over State Rep. Jarvis Johnson. These are the unofficial results. Molly now heads to the May 28 Democratic Party Primary runoff riding on a huge wave of momentum.
For those not convinced, maybe thinking that unlike Saturday’s Special Election, the May 28 runoff will be off limits to GOPers who may have voted on Saturday and in the Republican Party Primary on March 5. Here is a tidbit. In the December 11, 2018, State Senate District 6 Special Election that elected State Sen. Carol Alvarado, 15,339 voters turned out including 152 undervotes or just a hair under 1%. The State Senate 6 Special Election was the only race on the ballot back in December 2018. This past Saturday in Senate District 15, 18,376 turned out including 2,035 undervotes or 11%. Commentary is thinking that a good chunk of the 2,035 were GOP voters who wanted to vote in the Houston Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors elections but didn’t want to vote for either Democrat on their SD 15 ballot.
Jarvis ran strong in African American precincts, Molly won handily everywhere else. In my precinct in the Heights, she won 80% of the vote.
For the May 28 runoff, early voting in person begins two weeks from today on Monday, May 20, and only runs for five days, through Friday, May 24. Mail ballots have already been mailed to Democratic Party Primary runoff voters. See the featured photo. Heck, I sent my mail ballot back a few weeks ago.
Jarvis’s campaign or an independent expenditure group would have to immediately drop a few hundred thousand dollars on mail, TV, and social media ads to dramatically alter the narrative. Highly unlikely.
Molly looks strong for sure.
On “What’s Your Point” yesterday, the panelists were discussing Saturday’s low voter turnout in the HCAD Board of Directors election. 56,612 turned out or 2.16%. This was the first time we got to vote for some HCAD board members. Commentary and Charles Kuffner put it on the radar for folks earlier this year. There was very little media coverage on the HCAD board election. Voters know very little about HCAD and its board. Most voters also didn’t even know that there was an election.
I said this on Friday:
On the Harrisvotes.com website there is a list of over 60 Harris County local entities like municipalities, ISDs, and Mud Districts who will be conducting their own elections tomorrow. Do those voters get to vote on the HCAD Board of Directors or do the voters have to go vote at two different voting locations? Oh, well.
My good friend Bill King said yesterday on “What’s Your Point” that he had to go to two different voting locations on Saturday to cast his vote. One for the HCAD board election and another location for the Spring Branch ISD school board election. Bill went on to say that the Harris County Clerk should conduct all elections on uniform elections days. If you add in the county voters from the over 60 local entities, I am thinking it is more than a 2.16% turnout. Thanks for answering my question, Bill.
Former Harris County GOP Chair Gary Polland on “What’s Your Point” yesterday gave a shoutout to the current Harris County GOP Chair Cindy Siegel and State Sen. Paul Bettencourt for their efforts to get two GOP candidates to lead runoff positions in two HCAD Board of Directors races. Gary didn’t mention that one HCAD board slot had been won outright by Democrat Kathy Blueford-Daniels.
Oh, well.
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Commentary has mentioned not watching “Meet the Press” these days. They keep bringing on the dangerous election deniers. Poor moderator Kristen Welker will never learn. I saw the news clips yesterday where she had on U.S. Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina. Sen. Scott is also auditioning to be selected as Donald Trump’s VP pick. Kristen asked Scott if he would accept the 2024 election results. Scott hemmed and hawed and hemmed and hawed. Sad. Poor Kristen Welker.
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Remember earlier in the year when we signed closer Josh Hader and were supposed to have the best bullpen in MLB. Yesterday, Bryan Abreu had a blown save in the eighth inning, then Hader gave up a dinger in the ninth and we lost 5-4. Tags tweeted that this was the eighth blown save of the season for Astros relievers. Hader has a 6.14 ERA. The team is seven games back in the AL West. They are not a good team this morning. They have the day off and start a three-game series at Yankee Stadium tomorrow evening.
On the bright side, José Altuve is 34 today. Tuves has a .308 career batting average, 2095 career base hits, 409 doubles, 216 dingers, and 300 stolen bases. He is an eight-time MLB All Star, a Gold Glove Award winner, has six Silver Slugger Awards, an MVP, and has two World Series rings. He is also batting .343 this season. Happy Birthday, José!
