The crowded field to replace Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is down to two.
State Senator John Whitmire and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee will go to runoff on December 9th. Whitmore got more than 40 percent of the vote, compared to Jackson Lee, who got just over 30 percent of the vote.
None of the 14 other candidates came close to the high-profile officials. Gilbert Garcia, the former chair of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County had the third-most votes but never cracked double digits.
“I’m so pumped, I’m so excited for you and for Houston, I wish that I could go to work in the morning,” Whitmire told his supporters last night. “Let’s leave here fired up, I’m fired up — I need you fired up.”
Jackson Lee also addressed her supporters at campaign headquarters.
“I started this journey around the issue of people — making sure that whatever I said was to make Houston a liveable city, and to make Houston a city that responded to the needs of families and our children,” Jackson Lee said. “I hope that however the outcome is, it will reflect the people bought into a positive agenda that will take this city into the future and that future will be something for everyone.”
Elsewhere, attorney Tony Buzbee, was trailing in his City Council race against incumbent Mary Nan Huffman.
And in Bellaire, former Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Gus Pappas is in the lead for mayor but the two other candidates — newcomer Aaron Perry and incumbent Councilmember Nathan Wesely — are in a close race to force him into a Dec. 16 runoff.
You can check out more election night results HERE.