Election officers in Texas met on Tuesday night to vote for former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner to fill the vacant seat left by way of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who died on July 19 of pancreatic most cancers.
Turner defeated 5 different applicants for the slot and can be elected in November because the 18th district skews Democrat. His number one pageant got here from former Houston town council member Amanda Edwards, who had unsuccessfully adverse Jackson Lee previous this yr in Texas’s number one election.
Seventy-eight Democrat precinct chairs participated within the election, which was once held at Houston’s Wheeler Baptist Church.
Turner edged out Edwards within the first spherical of vote casting, taking 35 votes over her 34. Since no candidate gained a 51 p.c majority, a runoff was once caused between the highest two applicants. He received the total victory 41–37 within the ultimate vote. Turner was once appreciated to win Jackson Lee’s spot at the poll, and had already gained the endorsement of her two youngsters.
In between vote casting rounds, Turner delivered a short lived speech to spotlight his platform problems, together with schooling, inexpensive healthcare, local weather exchange, and inexpensive housing.
Edwards, who’s over twenty years more youthful than Turner, spoke about an identical problems in her speech, but additionally famous that President Joe Biden had stepped apart for Vice President Kamala Harris, pronouncing “We want any individual who’s going to have daring concepts and construct upon the power of [Jackson Lee’s] power and legacy, however transfer us ahead.”
Turner have been a member of the Texas Area of Representatives for District 139 from 1989 to 2016. All the way through that point he was once vice chair of the State Affairs Committee and, later, vice chair of the district’s Appropriations Committee. He then served as mayor of Houston from 2016 to 2024, when he stepped down on account of time period limits.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has introduced every other particular election on Nov. 5 to switch Jackson Lee till January. Jackson Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, is predicted to run to fill the vacant seat left by way of her mom, however didn’t compete for the total two-year time period slot, which will likely be determined at the similar day, Nov. 5.
The particular election runoff could also be anticipated to be closely contested, regardless of the placement being brief.
Sheila Jackson Lee served in Congress for 29 years; she was once the Deputy Minority Whip and backed the law that established Juneteenth as a federal vacation.