Houston area Republicans won a victory Tuesday in a runoff election considered a bellwether for the November election prospects of Texas Democrats, who are seeking to wrest control of the Texas House of Representatives.
The special election for House District 28, in the western suburbs of Houston, was triggered by the retirement of Rep. John Zerwas, a Republican.
Republican candidate Gary Gates won 17,457 votes to 12,617 votes for his opponent, Democrat Eliz Markowitz, according to results posted on the website of the Texas Secretary of State.
That’s a margin of 58% to 42%, wider than the victory won by Zerwas in 2018.
National Democrats had poured money into the race because the Texas House next year will draw up new legislative maps for the next decade, including for Congressional seats, affecting the balance of power in Washington.
Markowitz, the Democrat, won endorsements from party luminaries like Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke, who stumped with the candidate.
Democrats need to pick up just nine seats in the House to secure a majority. That would result in a divided Legislature in the 2021 session, assuming that Republicans retain control of the Senate, which appears likely.
In 2018 the Democrats flipped 12 seats in the Texas House. Party leaders have been hoping that the state’s changing demographics will accelerate the rise of the party in formerly safe Republican-controlled suburbs like HD-28, helping them take control of the House in 2021.
Tonight’s result bodes ill for that prospect. Rice University Political Scientist Mark P. Jones commented that the result is “a bucket of cold water on Democrat hopes of flipping the Texas House in November 2020.”
In a victory speech to his supporters, Gates said, “This was a race that had quite a lot of national attention. They thought this was a seat they could flip. They thought it would be (a close race). Right now we’re about 18 points ahead.”
Gates, a businessman, ran on a platform of controlling rising property taxes by reforming the appraisal process, supporting public schools, and natural disaster preparedness.
His opponent Markowitz ran on a platform of boosting public schools funding, improving access to healthcare, and gun control measures including universal background checks and red-flag laws.
Changing of the Guard in Houston, Dallas
In two other special runoff elections in Houston and Dallas, Democratic candidates easily won, replacing Democratic incumbents who had recently retired.
Anna Eastman in Houston District 148 defeated Republican Luis La Rotta by a margin of 65% to 35%. Turnout was light with only 6,915 votes cast.
Eastman replaces Rep. Jessica Farrar who retired in September after serving 25 years.
In House District 100, which Rep. Eric Johnson vacated last year to become Mayor of Dallas, Democrat Lorraine Birabil won the runoff against Democrat James Armstrong III, 66% to 34%. Only 2,479 votes were cast.
A reporter for the Dallas Morning News remarked that the race “has had few dramatic moments and has been staged in near obscurity.”
The HD-148 and HD-100 races have little bearing on the outcome of the overall battle for control of the House in November, because they are safe Democratic districts. The winners will only serve out the remainder of the current term, and will need to run in a Democratic primary in March for the term starting 2021.
In a press release, Celia Israel, Chair of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC), congratulated Eastman and Birabil on their wins.
She said Eastman “will fight for access to healthcare, our environment, and fair maps in the upcoming redistricting process.” And she praised Birabil as “an attorney who will fight for quality public education, access to healthcare, and criminal justice reform.”
