Houston council member Greg Travis announced he would seek the Republican nomination for HD133 (Likely R), the seat being vacated by Rep. Jim Murphy (R-Houston). Travis was first elected to the council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. His council district nearly perfectly matches HD133 except the latter includes four enclave municipalities and excludes the portion of Travis’s district which is east of Interstate 610.
Already in the HD133 race are former council member Bert Keller and Houston attorneys Shelly Barineau and Mano DeAyala. As far as we can tell, no Democrat has taken a formal step toward entering the race.
His announcement triggers the constitutional “resign to run” provision, necessitating a special election to fill his unexpired term. He will remain on the council until a successor is elected.
Early voting concludes Friday for the November 2 constitutional amendment, general and special elections.
HD118 special: Eight-day-out campaign finance reports were due Monday for the two candidates in next week’s runoff election. Frank Ramirez (D) raised $210K and has $85K on hand. We previously reported that former Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) raised $336K and has $43K on hand. for the period and has raised nearly $500K for the campaign. Ramirez has raised a total of $226K.
Ramirez’s largest contributors since the special election included Texas Organizing Project PAC ($72K), House Democratic Campaign Committee ($20K), PAC for America’s Future ($20K) and Texas Trial Lawyers Assoc. PAC ($20K). He received contributions from 17 House Democrats.
LAND open (Likely R): Former President Trump endorsed Sen. Dawn Buckingham (R-Lakeway).
SD5 (Likely R): Round Rock contract manager and 2018 Democratic nominee Meg Walsh re-established her campaign committee for a potential rematch against Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown). Walsh received 42% of the vote in that election.
HD35 (Likely D): Rep. Oscar Longoria (D-Mission) announced he would seek re-election.
HD108 (Likely R): Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas) announced he would seek re-election. Much may be made of the fact that President Trump carried the redrawn district by less than 1 percentage point as a sign that the district is still competitive, but he was a distinct outlier. The rest of the Republican ticket would have won this district by 17 points, measured head-to-head against their Democratic rivals.
CD10 (Likely R): U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Austin) announced he would seek re-election.
CD18 (Safe D): Houston journalist Carmen Montiel re-established her campaign committee for a potential challenge of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston) as a Republican. Montiel unsuccessfully ran for open CD29 in 2018, losing the Republican runoff to Phillip Aronoff, 52%-48%.
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