Brown Looks Set to Win Runoff, 3rd Term as Houston Mayor

In one of the closest mayoral elections in the nation’s fourth-largest city, incumbent Lee Brown was struggling Saturday night to win a third term against City Councilman Orlando Sanchez, who was seeking to become the first Latino to lead the city.

With 95% of precincts reporting in the runoff election, Brown was ahead with 157,451 votes to Sanchez’s 149,585, or 52% to 48%.

“It will be a cliffhanger until the last vote is counted,” said Dr. Tatcho Mindiola, director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston.

Win or lose, Sanchez’s strong showing reflects the rising influence of Latino voters, Mindiola added.

“People have predicted for years that the Hispanic population is going to be a political force to be dealt with. This is a major statement in that effort.”

Sanchez, a conservative Republican, was drawing support from traditionally Democratic Mexican American voters, despite having views “not within the mainstream of Hispanic issues,” Mindiola said. “[That] tells me this hunger, this desire to make a statement to elect one of our own has kicked in full force.”

Latinos are the largest ethnic group in Houston, accounting for 37% of the city’s 1.95 million residents.

Brown, a Democrat, is Houston’s first black mayor.

In a city where potholes attract more attention than politics, this was a contest with unusual heat. Race, experience and even the city’s storied traffic jams drove one of the ugliest campaigns in memory.

The emphasis on race intensified after Brown and Sanchez eliminated four other candidates in the Nov. 6 general election, setting up the first runoff between an African American and a Latino in a major U.S. city. In a taped telephone ad paid for by the Brown campaign, the sister of James Byrd Jr., the black man who in 1998 was dragged to his death in Jasper behind a pickup by white supremacists, criticized Sanchez for failing to support state hate crime legislation.

Brown also accused Sanchez of trying to scare black voters from the polls by sending poll watchers to heavily Democratic neighborhoods and said he would request a Justice Department investigation of the election.

The mayor’s race, which is technically nonpartisan, split between party lines when political leaders weighed in with endorsements. Former President Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush, who live in Houston, endorsed Sanchez, while Brown enlisted the support of former President Clinton.

Brown portrayed Sanchez as a political neophyte unqualified to lead such a large city. With 40 years of public service--including tenures as police chief in Houston, Atlanta and New York, and drug czar under Clinton--Brown said he has the experience Sanchez lacks.

Sanchez, who was a probation officer before winning a City Council seat in 1995, countered that Brown is a poor manager who bungled the city budget and is responsible for badly coordinated public works projects that have made driving in downtown Houston a traffic-snarled nightmare.

“The fundamentals aren’t there,” Sanchez said. “We have crumbling infrastructure, declining revenues, and every street is torn up in downtown.”