One year before the next election, a new poll may be a wake-up call for Harris County leadership. The University of Houston survey shows 57% of registered voters in Harris County believe the county is "going in the wrong direction." Among individual issues, the three biggest concerns for voters are crime, flooding, and poor-quality streets. Other concerns listed in the survey include homelessness, poor tap water, and abandoned or dilapidated buildings.
The results are not necessarily surprising to Bill King, former Houston mayoral candidate and fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. King, who ran his mayoral campaign years ago on a theme of "back to basics," says county leadership has lost its priorities. "Increasingly, we have Commissioners Court wanting to nationalize and politicize everything...you know, they sue the state at the drop of a hat," he tells KTRH. "It seems like they're a lot more interested in what their next political job is than in getting the job done that they were elected to do."
Interestingly, despite the overall negative outlook on the county, the survey found every current county leader still has a net-positive approval rating (although just barely for County Judge Lina Hidalgo). That signals it may be an uphill climb for Republicans to finally win back control of the county next year. "Certainly Republicans are going to try to tie particular elected officials to some of these negative outcomes, and it will be interesting to see whether they can do that successfully or not," says King.
"In Harris County, Republicans are still not popular overall," he continues. "So the question is are (voters) going to just vote a straight party ballot...you know, I'm a Democrat so I'm just going to vote for these people no matter what kind of job they're doing."