John Whitmire elected Houston mayor

State Sen. John Whitmire was elected Houston’s 63rd mayor in a landslide Saturday night, prevailing over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee by about 30 points, in a race he dominated from start to finish.

Whitmire opened up a massive lead, 64.4% to 35.6%, with the early vote tallied. Just under two-thirds of all votes in this year’s runoff were cast during early voting, according to Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth.

Whitmire, 74, has represented Houston in the Texas Legislature for 50 years, making a name for himself crafting the state’s criminal justice laws in the 1990s. He began his mayoral run in November 2021, campaigning on his trademark promise to be “tough and smart” on crime and warning that nothing else matters if City Hall cannot tackle public safety. It has been a winning message in a race in which voters repeatedly told pollsters that crime was their top concern.

Jackson Lee, 73, announced her mayoral campaign in March, immediately scrambling the political dynamics of the contest. She has campaigned as an aggressive problem solver focused on city services, hitting Whitmire for his Republican donors and moderate positions in the Legislature. But she has been dragged down by negative views among conservative and independent voters.

Mayor Sylvester Turner faced term limits and could not run again. He endorsed Jackson Lee on Nov. 8, as Whitmire continued to hammer Turner’s legacy on the campaign trail.

Whitmire leaned into his criminal justice bona fides during the campaign, promising to get personally involved in police recruiting and driving down response times. He also has promised to bring in as many as 200 Department of Public Safety troopers to help augment the city’s police presence on the streets.

He has vowed to put the city on a more sustainable financial footing, and to try to restore residents’ confidence in city services like the water system and recycling collection.

Whitmire built on a strong general election showing to get a runoff rout, dominating in the city’s highest voting districts. They include District C, centered in Montrose, the Heights and Meyerland, where Whitmire turned a 30-point advantage in November into a 57-point edge in December, according to early vote results. 

His November lead was 45 points in District G, which includes the conservative and wealthy enclaves of River Oaks, Uptown and much of west Houston. In December, he earned a whopping 77-point advantage in the early vote totals there. And in District E, which includes Kingwood and Clear Lake, he transformed a 30-point lead into a 68-point win in early voter turnout. 

Those three districts alone, which usually account for about half the votes in a municipal election, gave Whitmire a 44,000-vote cushion over Jackson Lee. His total lead in the early votes was about 38,400 votes.

The longtime lawmaker has enjoyed several advantages in the race, including his early announcement two years before election day.

“Clearly time was the major factor. Starting early and circling the wagons gave him the appearance of being a front-runner before anyone else got in,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.

But Whitmire also had a massive financial advantage — a $10 million campaign war chest he helped raise during his time in the Legislature. The specter of those funds may have fended off potential opponents in the early stages of the race. More recently, he deployed it to blanket local TV channels with advertisements.

Rottinghaus once called Whitmire’s campaign account the “800 pound gorilla” looming over the election, and it has made its presence known over the last few months. Whitmire has outspent Jackson Lee 5-to-1 during the campaign, and he spent $3 million in November, more than the congresswoman doled out over her entire eight-month campaign.

The longtime Democratic lawmaker also has benefited from the lack of a high-profile Republican in the field, allowing him to flex his reputation as a moderate coalition builder. He was able to bridge together elements of his traditional base with independent voters and conservatives who would not consider Jackson Lee. 

At 74, Whitmire is the oldest person elected Houston mayor in at least 100 years. The longtime lawmaker has been huddling with advisers and beginning to shape an administration as he campaigned over the last few months. That effort will now pick up steam as he maps out a transition team.

The new mayor will face several key challenges when he assumes office. Like any new mayor, he will have some six months to craft his first budget, a spending plan of about $6 billion. Whitmire has been short on explicit promises of what he will do with that plan, arguing nobody knows the true extent of the city’s finances outside City Hall.

Whitmire also inherits an eight-year contract stalemate between the city and one of his most enthusiastic supporters: the firefighters’ union. Whitmire, who long has gone to bat for firefighters, successfully sponsored a bill earlier this year allowing the union to go to binding arbitration in those disputes.

That new process, while already in effect, has been on hold as Turner’s administration challenged the law in court. Whitmire has promised to drop that challenge to quickly resolve that dispute.