By David Taylor
Managing Editor
It’s over. Around 1:30 a.m. Central Standard time Wednesday, former president Donald J. Trump was declared the winner in the presidential election ensuring one of the most incredible and bizarre comebacks in U.S. political history. The former president avoided attempts to remove him from the ballot in several states, is still involved with lawsuits, and avoided assassination twice and still managed to emerge victorious last Tuesday as the 47th president elect.
Trump’s win was decisive. As of Sunday afternoon, he maintains an enormous lead over Vice President Kamala Harris, with 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226. Only 270 votes are needed to win the presidency.
Trumps coattails were especially long, with the Republicans solidifying a majority in the Senate, with 53 seats to Democrats’ 46, with only one seat outstanding as of Sunday night. Republicans have flipped four seats thus far.
In Texas, the only U. S. Senate race was with incumbent Ted Cruz, who won by almost a million votes. Cruz defeated his challenger Colin Allred, 53.13 percent (5,973,420 votes) to 44.50 percent (5,002,501 votes). Polls just a week before showed a much closer race within the margin of error, but Cruz pulled away on election day for another six year term.
Control of the House of Representatives teeters between the two parties, with the Republicans currently holding the lead as of Saturday afternoon. The number needed to reach a majority in the House is 218, and Democrats are fighting from behind with 203, while the Republicans inch closer with 212. There are 20 seats still out.
Area congressmen holding onto their seats include Sylvia Garcia (D), Lizzie Fletcher (D), Morgan Luttrell (R), Al Green (D), Michael McCaul (R), Dan Crenshaw (R), Brian Babin (R). Lloyd Doggett (D), and Wesley Hunt (R). Another win of interest is former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner fending off challenger Lana Centonze to fill the District 18 seat of former congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who passed away earlier this summer.
In almost all the races, congressmen won with a margin of almost two-tone.
In the Texas Senate races, District 6 State Senator Carol Alvarado (D) was returned to office, defeating Martha Fierro (R), with 62.95 percent of the vote to 37.05 percent.
In the state house races, Rep. Charles Cunningham, Rep. Briscoe Cain, Dem. Armando Walle, Dem. Senfronia Thompson, Dem. Harold V. Dutton, Jr., and Dem. Ana Hernandez were all returned to office.
County elections were much closer than normal, with some influence at the polls coming from the top of the ticket.
Mike Doyle, County Chair for the Harris County Democratic Party, said, “There was a strong level of groundwork in Harris County, an enormous amount of volunteer effort to get folks to turn out. Locally, we had a lot of enthusiasm and good responses.”
He believed it was enough to prevent a red wave sweep of county offices.
In previous elections, Democrats have won with margins in the 200,000 to 250,000 range. This year was different, with most top of the ticket races in the county seeing the red wave influence and margins in the 20,000 vote range.
Republican Dan Simons lost to Democrat Sean Teare in the District Attorney’s race, by 50.87 percent for Teare and 49.13 percent for Simons, a mere 25,530 votes. In the race for county attorney, Christian D. Menefee (D) survived a challenge by Jacqueline Lucci Smith (R), 50.51 percent to Smith’s 49.49 percent, or 14,722 votes.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez enjoyed a wider margin of victory against his challenger Mike Know, 784,954 to 691,226 or 53.17 percent to 46.83 percent, a difference of 93,728.
In another countywide race, Annette Ramirez (D) defeated Steve Radack (R) for the county tax assessor-collectors office. Like the others, it was a close call, with Ramirez garnering 51.16 percent (751,163 votes) to Radack’s 48.84 percent (717,076) or 34,087 votes.
Danielle Dick (R) lost to Richard Cantu (D) in the County School Trustee, Position 3, At Large race. Cantu picked up 52.46 percent of the vote to Dick’s 47.54 percent, one of the larger margins for a county-wide race for Democrats. Eric Dick (R) and John Fitzgerald McGee (D) both were unopposed in their races for county school trustee.
Harris County Commissioners Rodney Ellis (D) and Tom Ramsey (R) were returned to office with large wins in their precincts.
“Republicans targeted Democratic judges being soft on crime which was lies,” Doyle said. “We lost some good judges.”
Republican Paul Bettencourt proclaimed the county was now ‘purple’ after Republicans defeated approximately 10 judges.
“It’s a lot different today than two years ago when we were talking about lost ballot paper in our press conference then,” said Cindy Siegel, County Chair for the Harris County Republican Party.
Siegel praised Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and her handling of the election.
She said in 2022 they were able to replace four Democratic judges, and this year another 10.
“The people said they were tired of soft on crime judges and backlogs in the courts,” she said.
The Harris County Flood Control District saw their bond pass. Taxpayers can expect to see an increase of about $50 per year in their bill in the coming months.
In the Channelview ISD trustee election, Shumona Collins was reelected to her Position 1 seat on the board. Collins won 53.60 percent of the vote or 53.60 percent, to challenger Keith Liggett’s 3,528 votes or 46.40 percent of the vote.
Hector Martinez also won re-election to his Position 3 seat on the board, with 67.21 percent of the vote to challenger Robert Byron Hay III’s 32.79 percent. Martinez collected 5,128 to Hay’s 2,502 votes.
Tammy Hall lost her bid to unseat current board president Alex Ybarra for Position 3 on the board. Ybarra earned 4,541 (59.06%) of the votes to Hall’s 3,148 (40.94%).
In Sheldon ISD board elections, Candace Randall (67.53%) defeated Waldo Gaviria (32.47%). Randall garnered 5,837 of the votes to Gaviria’s 2,806.
Latricia Archie ran unopposed for Position 2.
In the Position 3 race, Darius Provost-Evans defeated Kevin D. Gaines with 52.77 percent of the vote to 47.23. Evans was able to earn 4,496 votes to Gaines 4,024, the closest of the three elections.
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