Houston 2009 Mayoral Election

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yay! This is the largest U.S. city that's elected a gay mayor, yes?

But I thought New York in the '8... ah yes. Sorry. Openly.

[Sam Spade]

Yay! This is the largest U.S. city that's elected a gay mayor, yes?

But I thought New York in the '8... ah yes. Sorry. Openly.

roftlmao

Of course, there's another connection in there.  Like I said, the gays should be thanking Lee Brown (much as Giuliani/Bloomberg should be thanking David Dinkins).

[MaxQue]

Yay! This is the largest U.S. city that's elected a gay mayor, yes?

But I thought New York in the '8... ah yes. Sorry. Openly.

Who?

[Sam Spade]

Yay! This is the largest U.S. city that's elected a gay mayor, yes?

But I thought New York in the '8... ah yes. Sorry. Openly.

Who?

"vote for Cuomo, not the homo..."

[jimrtex]

From looking at the Chronicle's homepage, Council District A has only 46% reporting while Council District F has 89%. Anyone know what either of these places are like?

With Houston, it's hard to give an exact call (no zoning), but...

District A is pretty white and should be one of the most Republican areas of town (decent money too).  I suspect Hispanics have moved in, but how much = no clue.

District F has a pretty big Asian population.  Lots of Arabs too, I seem to recall.  This used to be pretty white, but has browned over the years.  Still one of the more whiter areas of town (but I'm just guessing).

Unless the remaining areas are pretty strong Locke, Parker should win.

When I speak of whites in the area, you have to remember there are all of these little incorporated cities within Houston where all the whites with families moved (along with the unincorporated Harris County suburbs).

A is Spring Branch, F is SW including Alief and Sharpstown.

Houston City Council Districts

[Eraserhead]

Yay! This is the largest U.S. city that's elected a gay mayor, yes?

But I thought New York in the '8... ah yes. Sorry. Openly.

Who?

"vote for Cuomo, not the homo..."

Those were the days.

[Lunar]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

But New York has a gay mayor.

[minionofmidas]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

President.

[Sam Spade]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

President.

Already have that too.

[Deldem]

I've got to say, I'm proud of my city today.

[Eraserhead]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

President.

Already have that too.

I don't know. Obama doesn't seem very happy to me these days, Spade.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

President.

Already have that too.

I don't know. Obama doesn't seem very happy to me these days, Spade.

You can't be gay and Muslim duh

[Хahar 🤔]

What's next for the gays now that they've got Houston?  Chicago??? LOS ANGELES??? NEW YORK?

President.

Already have that too.

I don't know. Obama doesn't seem very happy to me these days, Spade.

You can't be gay and Muslim duh

I contest that. I am sometimes gay.

[Bo]

I've got to say, I'm proud of Houston today.

[Sam Spade]

Update:

Although I'm still working (hard) on the precinct-by-precinct stuff for Houston/Harris County in this election (and many others), my preliminary analysis would pretty much classify the results as white vs. black. (i.e. 80-20 in white precincts, regardless of Republican/liberal, 90-10 in black ones)

The Hispanics either split evenly or in general didn't show up (which shows in those Hispanic precincts where I know that a certain amount of older whites still reside - Hispanic/black precincts are surprisingly not very common in Houston).

There might be some class distinctions, but I'm not finding them as of yet.

(caveat - only through about 1/4th of precincts at present)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No link to (white) partisan preference is at least a little bit surprising.

[Holmes]

So white conservatives voted for the gay over the black?

[Sam Spade]

No link to (white) partisan preference is at least a little bit surprising.

It may show up eventually (remember I've only been through 1/4 of the precincts), but it really hasn't in what I found so far.  I think my preliminary analysis may be a little too simplified as to partisanship - I'm spotting a lot of 85-90% showings in white liberal areas (where Obama got 60-70%), as opposed to 70-75% showings in the Republican white suburbs (where McCain got 60-70%), but that would still clearly mean that partisanship was not the key factor or even really that important of one.

I have a theory as to why this may be the case - Parker ran, basically, as the fiscal conservative in the race, and was fiscally conservative even by usual Houston mayoral candidate standards.  The usual white Republican suburbs in the Houston area tend to be wealthy (as opposed to those in Harris County - which tend to be less wealthy), and were therefore more sympathetic to this message, especially when it was opposed by a black man (which would bring up memories of Lee Brown).

Anyway, more on this later, I promise when I've run through all the numbers.

[Sam Spade]

So white conservatives voted for the gay over the black?

Parker could have never won the election, by my estimates, without at minimum getting 65% (maybe 70%) of the white vote.  Therefore, given the way Houston tends to work, she had to get a decent amount of Republicans (and probably conservatives too).  I don't know the exact number there she got or needed, but I could probably make a guess.