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Politics
Houston

Harris County GOP losses despite cash from developers

County commissioners now have the numbers to pass a budget without bipartisan concessions

Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and civil court judge Lesley Briones (Harris County, Lina Hidalgo via Twitter, Arnold & Itkin LLP, Getty)
Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and civil court judge Lesley Briones (Harris County, Lina Hidalgo via Twitter, Arnold & Itkin LLP, Getty)

At the end of Tuesday night, Harris County emerged as a blue stronghold in loyally red Texas.

Chief among the victories was incumbent Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who beat out Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer by a margin of less than 2 percentage points, the Houston Chronicle reported. Meanwhile, Democrat Beto O’Rourke won the county by more than 9 percentage points over Gov. Greg Abbott, who won statewide reelection. With all voting centers reporting, Hidalgo had 546,745 votes (50.74 percent) to Mealer’s 530,788 (49.25 percent), according to the Houston Chronicle.

Between July and November, GOP donors poured nearly $9 million into Healer’s campaign to unseat Hidalgo. Among them were high-profile Houston real estate developers Richard Weekley and Alan Hassenflu, who are also the co-founders of Texans for Lawsuit Reform. Hidalgo raised about $2.4 million in the same period.

“Yesterday, the people of Harris County chose optimism over fear and people over politics,” Hidalgo said in a tweet Wednesday morning.

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Democrats also expanded their majority on the Harris County Commissioners Court, the county’s five-person governing board led by the county judge. Most notably, Republican incumbent Jack Cagle of Precinct 4 was unseated by a Democrat, civil court judge Lesley Briones, by a 3-point margin. Meanwhile, Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia defeated his Republican challenger, Jack Morman, by a margin of more than 5 percent.

With a new 4-1 majority in the commissioners court, Democrats have removed a barrier in passing the county’s budget, as four commissioners are needed for a quorum to set the property-tax rate.

Cagle and his Republican colleague Tom Ramsey skipped the September vote on the county budget over unfounded allegations of reduced law enforcement spending. The move effectively blocked the proposed property tax cut, as it did when Cagle and Ramsey’s predecessor skipped the budget vote back in 2019.

— Maddy Sperling

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