Houston, TX Mayor: Campaign finance reports are out for the first six months of 2019, and Houston is in for another expensive mayoral race this year.
Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner raised $1.7 million during the period, and he has $3.2 million in the bank. Businessman Bill King, a conservative independent who narrowly lost to Turner in 2015, took in $685,000 and self-funded another $100,000, and he has $318,000 on-hand.
Wealthy trial lawyer Tony Buzbee has continued to pump millions into his campaign. Buzbee, who has pledged to self-fund his entire race, lent himself an additional $5.5 million this year on top of the $2 million he invested in 2018. Buzbee, who successfully defended then-GOP Gov. Rick Perry, refuses to identify himself with any party, and he's hosted fundraisers with Donald Trump as well as Hillary Clinton.
Buzbee began a very early TV ad campaign attacking Turner, and the Houston Chronicle writes that he’ll have spent $1.8 million from December through August. The only other candidate who has gone on the air so far is Turner, who ran a single ad touting his work helping the city recover after Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. No one has released any polls here, so we don’t have a good sense for how much Buzbee’s ad campaign is helping him.
City Councilor Dwight Boykins, a Democrat and a former Turner ally, entered the race last month with the support of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, which has been at the center of a high-profile pension feud with Turner. Boykins took in a total of $140,000 during 2019, and he has $70,000 in the bank. Another candidate, former City Councilmember Sue Lovell, jumped in earlier this month after the reporting period ended.
Houston's candidate filing deadline isn't until Aug. 26, so there's still time for more candidates to get in. All the contenders will compete on one non-partisan ballot on Nov. 5, and if no one takes a majority, there would be a runoff Dec. 14.