Month: January 2026

HOUSTON — House Republicans’ slim majority will be even leaner after Saturday, when Democrats vote to fill the Texas seat left open when Rep. Sylvester Turner unexpectedly died last year.

But the vote will just be the next step in choosing who ultimately represents Texas’ 18th Congressional District for a full two-year term — and sets up the next generational change debate that has roiled the party nationwide.

Just five weeks after Saturday’s special election runoff, voters in this Democratic hub of Black political power will return to the polls for a March primary to pick someone to represent the district after the seat was redrawn as part of Texas’ redistricting.

On Saturday, voters are choosing between Harris County attorney Christian Menefee, 37, or former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards, 44, to fill the current seat. The pair emerged as the top two vote-getters in a crowded 16-person primary in November, with Menefee finishing ahead of Edwards by 3 percentage points.

The winner will then hold the incumbency for just a few weeks before challenging activist icon Rep. Al Green, 78. That March election, all three candidates argue, is about choosing the best fighter to stand up to House Republicans, the Trump administration and the Texas GOP, which has been encroaching on Houston’s autonomy in recent years as Republicans try to weaken Democrats’ influence in the one of the nation’s largest cities.

“It’s going to be a fight between generations,” said Marc Campos, a longtime Democratic consultant in Houston, who is unaffiliated with any campaign.

Saturday’s oddly timed runoff is occurring after months of delays by Gov. Greg Abbott, who didn’t call for the special election to fill the seat until eight months after Turner’s death. Turner, in 2022, revealed he had been recovering from bone cancer and his family said he died from “enduring health complications.” He had been elected to replace former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died in office in 2024 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She served the district for nearly three decades.

Abbott justified the special election hold up by saying he didn’t trust Harris County to conduct a swift and valid election. The governor, who has set his sights on flipping the county in November, has claimed for years that there are widespread problems with electoral administration in Houston.

Texas Democrats said Abbott’s foot-dragging to fill the seat — which has advantaged House Republicans’ paper-thin majority in Washington — is another example of GOP meddling with Democratic power in major cities. Republicans’ off-cycle redistricting last year scrambled Democratic seats in Houston, Dallas and Austin. Green, a towering figure in Houston political circles, jumped into the race for the newly gerrymandered 18th seat after the neighboring district he held for more than 20 years was carved up by the GOP.

In another sign of how redistricting has muddled campaigns, Menefee and Edwards are running in Saturday’s runoff under different lines from the upcoming March primary — forcing the pair to run simultaneous campaigns with two overlapping but not identical sets of voters. Early voting in the March primary begins in two weeks.

“This is a microcosm of forced redistricting,” said Odus Evbagharu, a Menefee aide. “It’s something that got forced down our throats, and now we just have to live with that.”

During the final stretch of the runoff, candidates crisscrossed both the old and new 18th districts, an area of central Houston with a large Black population. About a quarter of the district’s current constituents live within its new iteration.

At a candidate forum held in a Catholic church on Thursday evening, Green, Menefee, Edwards and a fourth candidate running in the primary with little name recognition, newcomer Gretchen Brown, quickly rattled off their biographies and what they would bring to Washington.

For Green, it wasn’t an introduction as much as a reminder to the audience that he has represented many of them for two decades. A significant share of Green’s constituents in the new 18th district were shuffled over from Green’s old district.

“It is important for people to understand that I’m not moving into a new congressional district,” Green said while taking the microphone and brandishing his signature gold-capped cane. “I am not. The congressional district moved to me.”

In this era when Democrats are eager to forcefully counter Republicans, voters here have a choice: Support a trusted figure who can navigate Washington or take a chance on a younger representative seen as the future of the party. It’s an urgent debate within the party as Democrats plot their strategy for regaining power, and is playing out in primaries across the country. Some other top Democrats facing generational primaries, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California and Steny Hoyer of Maryland, opted not to run again.

“Al Green has a great name,” said Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who endorsed Menefee in the runoff but has not weighed in on the primary. “But then, on the other hand, whoever wins [the runoff] will get a bump of celebrity status.”

Menefee made local history as the youngest elected Harris County attorney — the first Black person in the job — and has built his reputation on going head-to-head with Abbott, suing the governor’s ban on mask mandates and challenging his demands to audit local elections. It’s his first stint in public office after he ran a surprise campaign ousting the three-term incumbent in 2020.

Menefee — who is running ads playing on 90’s millennial nostalgia — has racked up endorsements from organizations like Leaders We Deserve and Houston Black American Democrats, more than a dozen labor groups, and prominent figures like Rep. Jasmine Crockett and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

Edwards draws on broad support from women and from her years as an attorney and at-large member of the city council. She won the endorsement of past opponent Jolanda Jones, a state representative who has served as a main Menefee antagonist, criticizing him for continuing to collect his government salary while campaigning.

Edwards is also a familiar face on campaign mailers: She ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2020, Houston mayor in 2023 and U.S. House in 2024. Her career in politics began when she was a congressional aide for Lee as a recent college graduate.

Menefee and Edwards dismiss the idea that the primary will be a referendum on age, seeing it instead as an expression of voters’ desire to see broad change in Congress.

“What I think people want is something new,” Menefee said in an interview. “They want new strategic thinkers who are going to come in and have a plan for opposition against the president.”

Edwards argues it’s also an issue of continuity. A Green victory would mean that some constituents living in the district will have been represented by four lawmakers in three years. “They want to pass that torch forward and this is an opportunity to do that,” she said. “It’s not a question of age. It’s a question of succession.”

Green, in an interview, said he expects people will vote for him if they primarily value experience and accomplishments, ticking off his leadership on the Homeland Security and Oversight committees, along with the billions he has steered toward his district and recommendation of three judges confirmed during the Obama administration.

“I bring to the table traditionally what people have looked for when they were trying to make a decision,” he said. “So we’ll find out whether tradition continues or whether we’ll have a different circumstance.”

​Politics