What are Peter Brown's mayoral chances?

Council Member Peter Brown’s Record in City Elections: What Does It Say About his 2009 Mayoral Chances?

In previous posts I have reviewed the electoral track record of announced mayoral candidates Roy Morales and Annise Parker. That review led me to conclude while Mr. Morales has little chance of winning the mayor position, his presence on the ballot virtually assures a runoff. And that runoff, based on past performance, will likely include retiring City Controller Annise Parker, based on her demonstrated strength in recent competitive elections. The remaining candidate who has run in city elections is Council Member Peter Brown, who lost a runoff in December 2003 to At-Large Council Member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, but won an open at-large seat in 2005, and was elected without opposition in 2007. Let’s look at the competitive elections Peter Brown ran in 2003 and 2005 to see his sources of strength and weakness with city voters.

In analyzing vote patterns, I break the 520 voting precincts that are entirely or substantially inside the city into seven different categories. These are:

Kingwood – Mostly Anglo, politically conservative, and the most Republican part of the city. This corner of the city usually accounts for 5 to 6% of the vote.

Clear Lake City – Somewhat less Anglo than Kingwood, and also a bit less conservative and Republican, and accounting for 6% or so of Houston voters.

Westside Anglos – Republican and conservative, but a little less so every election cycle. These precincts account for about 20% of the city electorate.

African American – There are more than 100 precincts in the city that are almost entirely black, and usually cast about 24% of the total vote.

Predominately Latino. There are now about 40 precincts in Houston with a majority of Spanish surname registered voters. They make up about 8% of the electorate.

Inner-urban Anglos. A group of 80 or so mostly Anglos precincts stretching from Garden Oaks and the Heights on the north side, thru Montrose and the Rice/Braeswood area to Meyerland in the southwest. Political moderate to liberal, leaning Democratic. About 20 percent of all voters are in these areas.

Transitional/mixed. There are about 100 demographically unstable precincts in Houston. Eighty percent are seeing a shift as Anglos move out and are replaced by minorities, but in about 20 precincts inside the Loop, Anglos are displacing Blacks and Hispanics. This set of precincts have about 16% of the electorate.

Now let’s see how Peter Brown did in these areas when he first ran in 2003 against Council Member Sekula-Gibbs. In the first round, the incumbent drew 41.6% of the vote against three opponents, with Peter Brown finishing second with 25.6% of the vote. He secured the runoff spot by finishing ahead of my former student Jolanda (Jo) Jones, an African American attorney and former UH star athlete, who got 21.5% of the vote. (a fourth candidate took the remainder). Peter Brown made the runoff by running first in the Inner-urban Anglo boxes, and running a decent second to Jolanda Jones in the black precincts, where he took about 28% of the vote to her 50%. The December runoff was close, but Brown lost to Sekula-Gibbs by a 52.4% to 47.6% margin. The runoff vote broke down as follows:

Area	% of Vote	Shelley Sekula-Gibbs%	Peter Brown%
Kingwood	6%	71.5%	28.5%
Clear Lake	6%	71.6%	28.4%
Westside Anglo	21%	64.4%	35.6%
Inner Urban Anglos	18%	41.5%	58.5%
African American	24%	25.8%	74.2%
Majority Latino	7%	51.7%	48.3%
Mixed/Transitional	18%	57.5%	42.5%

In 2005, Peter Brown won an open at-large seat by beating Roy Morales and Michael “Grif” Griffin, with 51% of the vote. Morales took about 32% of the vote, and Griffin 17%. The vote by area broke down this way:

Area	% of Vote	Combined Morales/Griffin%	Peter Brown%
Kingwood	9%	66.0%	34.0%
Clear Lake	8%	56.5%	43.5%
Westside Anglo	22%	47.8%	52.2%
Inner Urban Anglos	22%	34.7%	65.3%
African American	19%	27.1%	72.9%
Majority Latino	6%	75.4%	24.6%
Mixed/Transitional	14%	56.2%	43.8%

What do these numbers suggest about Council Member Brown’s prospects in 2009? My read is he faces a tough race to make the finals. He has demonstrated a past appeal to inner urban Anglo voters and African Americans, if there is no black candidate in the race. But in 2009, City Controller Annise Parker also has considerable appeal to inner urban white voters, and there is a credible African American, former City Attorney Gene Locke, also in the race. To secure a runoff spot, Peter Brown has to run a decent second across nearly all areas of the city. It can be done (witness Bill White’s success in 2003), but Mayor White spent a record nine million dollars to garner 37% of the total vote. That is a good deal more than anyone has spent before or since in running for the CEO job in Houston. We will all eagerly await the July 15th campaign finance reports to see if Peter Brown is raising the money needed to run a city-wide vote effort that could propel him into a runoff.

- Richard Murray

Comments

[SMILL]

Excellent points. I hope Mr. Brown pulls through!