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A day after U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston) learned that she and her Houston mayoral opponent, State Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) will face each other in a runoff election next month, the congresswoman received an endorsement from her would-be predecessor, incumbent Sylvester Turner.
A tweet posted featured a graphic of veteran lawmaker Sheila Jackson Lee alongside Turner, who is stepping away from his position as mayor due to term limits. Serving since 2016 as the mayor of Texas' largest city, Turner has thrown his support behind Jackson Lee. “I’m with Sheila for Houston,” he’s quoted as saying in the image.
Houston Daily noted that the race to succeed Turner began with nearly 20 candidates but was eventually narrowed down to Jackson Lee and Whitmire. In order to win the race outright, either candidate would have needed to secure at least 50% of the votes; however, neither achieved this threshold.
Houston ABC station KTRK News reported voting statistics showing Whitmire led all candidates with 107,097 votes or 43% of total votes cast while Jackson Lee secured 89,773 votes or 36%. According to the station's reports, other candidates like Gilbert Garcia, Dr. Jack Christie and Lee Kaplan each garnered more than 1% of the vote.