Houston mayoral election, 2015

Last updated
Houston mayoral election, 2015
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←  2013 December 12, 2015 2019  →

  TurnerSylvester.png BillKingHouston.JPG
Candidate Sylvester Turner Bill King
Party Democratic Independent
Popular vote108,389104,307
Percentage50.96%49.04%
Mayor before election

Annise Parker
Democratic

Elected Mayor

Sylvester Turner
Democratic

The 2015 Houston mayoral election was decided by a runoff that took place on December 12, 2015, to elect the Mayor of Houston, Texas. As no candidate won a majority of the vote during the general election on November 3, 2015, the run off was held between the top two finishers, Sylvester Turner, who received 32% of the vote, and Bill King, who received 25%. [1] In the run-off, Turner edged King, 51% to 49%, to become the 62nd Mayor of Houston.

Houston City in Texas, United States

Houston is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the fourth most populous city in the United States, with a census-estimated population of 2.312 million in 2017. It is the most populous city in the Southern United States and on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth most populous metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States and the second most populous in Texas after the Dallas-Fort Worth MSA. With a total area of 627 square miles (1,620 km2), Houston is the eighth most expansive city in the United States. It is the largest city in the United States by total area, whose government is similarly not consolidated with that of a county or borough. Though primarily in Harris County, small portions of the city extend into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.

Texas State of the United States of America

Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U.S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast.

Sylvester Turner American politician

Sylvester Turner is an American attorney and politician who is the 62nd mayor of Houston, Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, Turner was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1989 until 2016. He attended the University of Houston and Harvard Law School. Turner ran for mayor of Houston in 1991, losing in the runoff election to Bob Lanier. He lost again in 2003, coming in third and thus missing the runoff.

Contents

Thirteen candidates appeared on the November ballot. [2] A poll of likely voters conducted in June revealed that half of the city's likely voters were undecided, and that three of the candidates included in the poll, Sylvester Turner, Adrian Garcia and Chris Bell (all of whom were Democrats) were within the margin of error of the top two spots. [3] However, the final results were significantly different from the early polling, with Independent King claiming the second runoff spot along with Turner.

Mayoral elections in Houston are biennial, with the winner being sworn-in in the following January for a four-year term. The election is officially nonpartisan, although the political parties still support and endorse candidates.

With the passage of voter-approved Proposition 2, the Mayor began a four-year term effective in January 2016.

Incumbent Mayor Annise Parker, a member of the Democratic Party who had been in office since 2010, was term-limited and could not run for re-election to a fourth term in office. [4]

Annise Parker American politician

Annise Danette Parker is an American politician who served as the 61st Mayor of Houston, Texas, from 2010 until 2016. She also served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council from 1998 to 2003 and city controller from 2004 to 2010.

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

During the month between the general election and the runoff, Bell endorsed King, while Parker and Garcia, as well as former U.S. President Barack Obama, endorsed Turner. [5]

Barack Obama 44th president of the United States

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008.

Candidates

Democratic Party

Declared

Robert Christopher Bell is an American politician, attorney, and former journalist. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and South Texas College of Law. Bell served five years on the Houston City Council from 1997 to 2001, followed by one term in the United States House of Representatives from Texas' 25th Congressional District in Houston from 2003 to 2005. He was then the Democratic nominee in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas, losing to Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Perry by 406,450 votes in a fractured general election campaign that also drew in two significant independent challengers. Bell, a member of the Democratic Party, is currently an attorney specializing in many forms of litigation, including commercial disputes, copyright infringement, and securities disputes. Prior to practicing law, Bell had been a prominent radio journalist in Texas. On January 25, 2015, he announced his candidacy for the non-partisan position of mayor of Houston, telling supporters: "I know my competitors will do their best to try and define me. They might even talk about some of the political races that I have run and lost. And that's fair game — because if it's necessary, I'll talk about the races they've run and lost." He finished fifth.

Houston City Council

The Houston City Council is a city council for the city of Houston in the U.S. state of Texas.

Declined

Clarence O'Neal Bradford, known as C.O. "Clarence" Bradford, is a Houston City Council member, a former chief of police of Houston, Texas, and in 2008 an unsuccessful Democratic Party candidate for District Attorney of Harris County, Texas. On November 3, 2009, Bradford was elected to the Houston City Council from At-large Position 4 and took office January 2, 2010. In the 2011 election, Bradford won a second term as a Houston City Councilmember.

Houston Police Department

The Houston Police Department (HPD) is the primary law enforcement agency serving the City of Houston, Texas, United States and some surrounding areas. Its headquarters are at 1200 Travis in Downtown Houston.

A comptroller is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executive who acts as the head of accounting, and oversees the preparation of financial reports, such as balance sheets and income statements.

Republican Party

Declared

  • Stephen Costello, Houston City Councilmember [13] [14]

Withdrawn

  • Oliver Pennington, Houston City Councilmember [15] [16]

Declined

Independent

Bill King, attorney and former Mayor of Kemah [19]

Polling

Poll sourceDate(s)
Sample
size		Margin of
error		Stephen
Costello		Bill

King

Sylvester

Turner

Adrian

Garcia

Chris

Bell

Marty

McVey

Ben

Hall

Don't KnowRefused
UH Center for Public Policy & Rice University 5/20 -

6/21

500± 4.5%2%2%16%12%8%0%3%50%6%

General election

Held November 3, 2015 -- 50% needed to avoid runoff

Houston mayoral election, 2015 [20]
CandidateVotes%±
✓ Sylvester Turner 81,63932%Runoff
✓Bill King65,86625%Runoff
Adrian Garcia44,67317%
Ben Hall24,7659%
Chris Bell19,3127%
Steve Costello17,5157%
Hoc Thai Nguyen2,3211%
Marty McVey1,3791%
Demetria Smith1,2321%
Others1,9641%
Turnout 260,666100%

Held December 12, 2015

Houston mayoral runoff election, 2015
CandidateVotes%±
✓ Sylvester Turner 108,38951%+19%
Bill King104,30749%+24%
Turnout 212,696100%
DistrictTurner
%		Turner
votes		King
%		King
votes
District A36.63%5,49363.37%9,500
District B92.75%17,4137.25%1,361
District C44.62%16,00555.38%19,865
District D85.74%20,24614.26%3,368
District E21.78%5,60078.22%20,110
District F46.21%4,00853.79%4,665
District G19.64%6,89380.36%28,194
District H64.30%7,35535.70%4,084
District I62.05%5,89537.95%3,606
District J46.89%3,01353.11%3,414
District K68.71%12,71831.29%5,792
Montgomery County 24.18%2275.82%70
Fort Bend County 93.08%3,7286.92%278

See also

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Kathryn Jean Whitmire is an American politician and accountant best known as the first woman to serve as Mayor of Houston, serving for five consecutive two-year terms from 1982 to 1991. From 1977 to 1981, she was the city controller, a position which made her the first female elected to any office in the city. Whitmire drew national attention when she defeated former Harris County Sheriff Jack Heard in her election as mayor. The election drew national focus because it symbolized a major political realignment in the fourth-largest city in the United States.

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References

  1. ↑ http://abc13.com/news/turner-king-headed-for-runoff-for-houston-mayor/1066658/
  2. ↑ "2015 Candidates". The City of Houston. The City of Houston. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  3. ↑ "2015 Houston Mayoral Race". Houston Public Media. Houston Public Media. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  4. ↑ "Mayor Annise Parker reveals her third term agenda — and what she'd do with the Astrodome". Culture Map Houston. January 2, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  5. ↑ Svitek, Patrick (December 11, 2015). "Obama Endorses Turner in Houston Mayoral Runoff". Texas Tribune . Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Houston Mayor's Race 2015 – Looking Ahead at Potential Candidates". Houston Business Weekly. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Chris Bell to announce mayoral bid Sunday". Houston Chronicle. January 22, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Fundraising rules may offer early advantage in mayor's race". The Houston Chronicle. November 12, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Ben Hall to run for Houston mayor in 2015". The Houston Chronicle. September 26, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Sylvester Turner eyes Houston Mayor job". My Fox Houston. February 11, 2014. Archived from the original on December 29, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 "A dozen candidates actively weighing mayoral bids". The Houston Chronicle. December 12, 2014. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Chris Brown for Houston" . Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  13. 1 2 "And the 2015 race begins…". The Houston Chronicle. December 23, 2013. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  14. 1 2 3 "2015 list of who might run for mayor is crowded and growing". The Houston Chronicle. August 3, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  15. ↑ "Mayoral hopeful delivers kickoff speech at Space Center Rotary". The Bay Area Citizen. April 28, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  16. ↑ Morris, Mike (April 17, 2015). "Councilman ends run for mayor". Houston Chronicle . Retrieved April 20, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Dewhurst to start 'large public policy venture,' consider future run for office". Houston Chronicle. November 10, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Sole female candidate reconsiders run for Houston mayor". Houston Business Journal. September 12, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  19. ↑ Korsgard, Ryan. "Businessman Bill King announces run for Houston mayor". Click2Houston.com. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  20. ↑ James McAlester (5 November 2011). "November 2015 election results". Channel 2 Houston. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
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