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    Chinese Magnate Admits to Making Straw Donations to N.Y. Politicians

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    Mayor Eric Adams was among those who received illegal donations from Hui Qin, a Chinese businessman, a person familiar with the federal case said.A Chinese business titan pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges that he made more than $10,000 in straw donor contributions to political candidates — including, a person familiar with the case said, to a New York congressman and Mayor Eric Adams.Hui Qin, 56, of Old Westbury, N.Y., who was once listed on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, ran a now-defunct entertainment business called SMI Culture. But he has been in federal custody since the fall, when he was arrested at an apartment he kept at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on charges of using fake identification.Hui QinImaginechinaMr. Qin asked others to contribute to political campaigns of his choosing, and he agreed to reimburse them, in 2021 and 2022, according to prosecutors. The other figures who received donations were Representative Andrew Garbarino of Long Island and Allan Fung, a former mayor of Cranston, R.I., who ran for Congress, the person familiar with the case said. Both are Republicans, while Mr. Adams is a Democrat.Mr. Qin concealed his activities from the officials he was raising money for, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. As a result, they unwittingly filed false reports.Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement that Mr. Qin had admitted to “engaging in a brazen web of deception” that spread lies to the authorities overseeing elections.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Election Fraud Is Rare. Except, Maybe, in Bridgeport, Conn.

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      Voters say that campaigns in Connecticut’s largest city routinely rely on absentee ballots — collected illegally — to win elections. Now, the city faces a mayoral primary redo.Two months ago, Joe Ganim received the most votes in the race for mayor of Bridgeport, Conn. This week, the city will vote again — to decide if he should even be the Democratic candidate.The unlikely and confusing situation arose after a judge ruled that there was enough evidence of misconduct in the Democratic primary in September to throw its result — a victory by Mayor Ganim — into doubt. The judge pointed to videos showing “partisans” repeatedly stuffing absentee ballots into drop boxes.The footage provided a particularly lurid illustration of ballot tampering, though experts say election fraud is rare in the United States and often accidental when it occurs.But in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, ballot manipulation has undermined elections for years.In interviews and in court testimony, residents of the city’s low-income housing complexes described people sweeping through their apartment buildings, often pressuring them to apply for absentee ballots they were not legally entitled to.Sometimes, residents say, campaigners fill out the applications or return the ballots for them — all of which is illegal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Collars, Captured by Camera

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      An exhibit at the Jewish Museum features photos of collars worn by the late Supreme Court justice.Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at an exhibition of photographs of the collars that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wore. We’ll also look at a Manhattan Democrat whose City Hall hopes were dashed in 2021 but who is now looking into challenging Mayor Eric Adams in 2025.Kris GravesIn the soft stillness of a museum gallery, you could forget that the photographs on the walls around you were shot under time pressure.Six minutes each, the photographer Elinor Carucci told me.The photographs, on view at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, are haunting, almost three-dimensional images of collars and necklaces that belonged to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Scott Stringer Explores Run Against Eric Adams for N.Y.C. Mayor

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      Mr. Stringer, whose 2021 mayoralty bid was derailed by a sexual misconduct allegation, is gearing up to try again to beat Eric Adams.Scott M. Stringer, the former New York City comptroller and 2021 mayoral candidate, said on Thursday that he would form an exploratory committee and begin raising funds for a possible primary challenge against Mayor Eric Adams next year.The move caught much of the city’s Democratic establishment by surprise and signaled the start of a combative new phase of Mr. Adams’s mayoralty, as Mr. Stringer became the first Democrat to move toward directly contesting the mayor’s re-election.Any primary challenge promises to be exceedingly difficult. No challenger has defeated an incumbent New York City mayor in a primary since David Dinkins beat Edward I. Koch in 1989.But few of his predecessors have been held in such low regard in polls as Mr. Adams, who is confronting the city’s budget woes, an escalating migrant crisis and an F.B.I. investigation into his campaign. Other challengers may soon follow.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Bloomberg and Other Billionaires Donated to Adams’s Legal-Defense Fund

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      Mayor Eric Adams of New York set up the fund amid a broad federal corruption investigation into his campaign’s fund-raising practices.Mayor Eric Adams raised $732,000 in less than two months to pay for legal expenses related to a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, according to a filing submitted Tuesday.The contributors to Mr. Adams’s defense fund include an array of wealthy players in business and politics, among them at least four who have been described as billionaires: the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Ukrainian-British oligarch Leonard Blavatnik, the real estate and fertilizer tycoon Alexander Rovt and the cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce.The fund has so far spent $440,000, most of it on WilmerHale, the law firm Mr. Adams hired to represent him in the investigation, the filing shows.City law permits elected officials to set up defense funds to pay for expenses related to criminal or civil investigations that are unrelated to their government duties and cannot be paid for with public money. The funds can collect up to $5,000 per donor but are not permitted to solicit or receive contributions from anyone with city contracts or business before the city.The Eric Adams Legal Defense Trust was set up late last year after the F.B.I. searched the home of Brianna Suggs, who was then Mr. Adams’s chief campaign fund-raiser. It made its first filing with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board on Tuesday.Mr. Adams, who unveiled his preliminary city budget on Tuesday, said the support had come from donors who appreciated his “life of service,” from his time as a transit police officer to his tenure as mayor.“They said, ‘We want to help,’” he said. “People have known my character, and they said, ‘We want to help.’”The four billionaires and their relatives contributed a total of $40,000 to the fund. Mr. Pierce, a former child actor who is now a cryptocurrency investor, has previously supported the mayor. Mr. Adams has praised cryptocurrency, and he flew on Mr. Pierce’s private jet to Puerto Rico shortly after he was elected mayor. Since his campaign, Mr. Adams has also nurtured a relationship with Mr. Bloomberg, who left City Hall at the end of 2013.Frank Carone, Mr. Adams’s first chief of staff and a longtime adviser, and his relatives pitched in $20,000, while Lori Fensterman, the wife of Mr. Carone’s former law partner, gave $5,000. The mayor himself gave two donations totaling $120.Among the other donors were Jenifer Rajkumar, a state assemblywoman from Queens and a close ally of Mr. Adams, who gave $2,500; Angelo Acquista, a pulmonologist and diet book author, and his wife, Svetlana Acquista, who gave Mr. Adams a total of $10,000; and Michael Cayre, an owner of Casa Cipriani who, with two family members, donated $15,000. Mr. Cayre recently organized a gala at the club that reportedly raised about $10 million for victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, with Mr. Adams in attendance. The bulk of the fund’s expenses so far, about $397,000, was paid to WilmerHale, where Mr. Adams’s defense team includes Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson, two former top prosecutors at the Southern District of New York, which is conducting the investigation along with the F.B.I. Mr. McGuire also formerly worked as Mr. Adams’s chief counsel in City Hall.The fund also paid $7,500 to Pitta L.L.P., a law firm whose co-managing partner, Vito Pitta, is overseeing the fund. It paid about $25,000 to two companies for “vetting and investigative services” and “forensic data collection.”The City Council authorized legal defense funds in 2019 after the Conflicts of Interest Board ruled that city gift restrictions prohibited Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio, from soliciting more than $50 per donor to pay for legal bills he had accumulated during state and federal investigations into his fund-raising.The investigation into Mayor Adams’s fund-raising came into view in early November. On the same day as the search of Ms. Suggs’ home, F.B.I. agents also searched the New Jersey houses of Rana Abbasova, an aide in Mr. Adams’s international affairs office, and Cenk Ocal, a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on his transition team. A few days later, agents stopped Mr. Adams after a public event and seized several electronic devices from the mayor.Federal officials in Manhattan are examining whether the Turkish government conspired with Mr. Adams’s campaign to funnel donations into campaign coffers and whether Mr. Adams pressured Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-rise Turkish consulate despite safety concerns.Neither Mr. Adams nor anyone else connected to the investigation has been accused of wrongdoing. The mayor and his representatives have said that he has followed the law scrupulously.On Tuesday, new campaign fund-raising disclosures for the 2025 mayor’s race also became public — the first such filings since the federal investigation into the Adams campaign came to light. They showed that Mr. Adams’s campaign raised $524,800 since July — a significantly lower figure than in the first half of 2023, when he raised $1.3 million.The mayor’s campaign received nearly 600 donations from lawyers and real estate leaders, but only about two dozen of the donations came after the Nov. 2 raid on the fund-raiser’s home. More

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      Former Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt Toys With Running for Mayor of Florence

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      The museum’s former director, Eike Schmidt, is toying — somewhat mischievously — with entering the race to become Florence’s mayor.Will he? Or won’t he?It’s a question that’s been buzzing at dinner parties and on street corners in Florence, and throughout the Italian art world. The “he” in question is Eike Schmidt, who until last month was the director of the Uffizi museum, and who has hinted that he might run for mayor of Florence in upcoming municipal elections.Since the summer, Schmidt has been toying — somewhat mischievously — with the idea of running with the Brothers of Italy, the hard-right majority party in the coalition that governs the country.Even after he was appointed last month as the new director of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, a four-year posting set to begin this month, Schmidt has not clarified his intentions, except to say in an interview in an Italian newspaper that he would be unable to do both jobs at once.On Wednesday, Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, posted a photo on social media with Schmidt, and wrote in an accompanying post that there were “great plans and ideas” for the Capodimonte that he had discussed with the new director.But many still believe that Schmidt has larger aspirations and that his candidacy in Florence remains possible. The former director of the Uffizi — considered one of the world’s great museums, with instantly recognizable works by Renaissance masters like Botticelli, Leonardo and Michelangelo — has said he would make a decision this month. He declined to be interviewed for this article.“He’s a person who likes challenges,” said Giorgio Bernardini, who writes about local politics for Corriere Fiorentino, the local edition of the national daily Corriere della Sera. “And he’s a strong personality,” Bernadini added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      John Whitmire, a Moderate Democrat, Wins Runoff for Houston Mayor

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      Mr. Whitmire, a state senator, prevailed over U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee to lead the nation’s fourth-largest city.John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat who has served in the Texas State Senate since 1983, won a runoff election on Saturday to become mayor of Houston, according to The Associated Press, defeating Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a prominent congressional Democrat, in the nonpartisan race.Mr. Whitmire had been considered a front-runner from the moment he entered the race last year, prevailing in a city known for its diversity by creating a coalition that included Republicans and moderate white Democrats as well as Hispanic and Asian voters.He made public safety the focus of his messaging, following a strategy that has proved successful for moderate Democrats in recent big city mayoral races around the country.Ms. Jackson Lee, 73, a veteran legislator first elected to Congress in the 1990s, entered the race in March with strong backing from many Democrats and Black voters but struggled to establish a message and expand her base of support.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Mayor Adams’s Swagger Is Diminished. His Foes Are Ready to Pounce

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      Eric Adams is facing stronger pushback from the City Council and progressives, and prominent Democrats in New York are considering running for mayor.If Mayor Eric Adams were in search of evidence that his recent spate of troubles had cost him some standing in New York, he would not need to look far.The city comptroller, Brad Lander, recently restricted the mayor’s spending powers on the migrant crisis, and has playfully alluded to the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Adams’s fund-raising in his own pitch to donors.The City Council is preparing to fight the mayor over his painful budget cuts to city services and could soon override his objection to banning solitary confinement in city jails. Even his friend, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is eyeing his job.The reasons for the discontent surrounding Mr. Adams are plenty. He faces a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, and widespread criticism over his handling of the migrant crisis. He was named in a legal claim accusing him of sexual assault in 1993 and he made unpopular budget cuts to the police, schools and libraries.The extent of his unpopularity was quantified this week in a stunning Quinnipiac University poll: Only 28 percent of New Yorkers approve of the job Mr. Adams is doing, the lowest for any New York City mayor in a Quinnipiac poll since it began surveying the city in 1996.Mr. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing in the F.B.I. investigation, and he is hardly the first mayor who has faced an investigation: His predecessor, Bill de Blasio, also faced an inquiry into his campaign’s finances. But the political world remains abuzz about his future, especially after the F.B.I. seized his cellphones on the street.One political consulting firm was so curious to know how far the mayor’s star had fallen that it commissioned its own poll to ask New Yorkers who they would support in a special election if Mr. Adams resigned.“We’re in a period of enormous political uncertainty,” said Evan Roth Smith, a founding partner at Slingshot Strategies. He added, “A special election is far from a certainty, but it’s clearly a possibility.”The poll found that Mr. Cuomo would be the most popular candidate at 22 percent, followed by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, at 15 percent. Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner who finished second in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, came in third at 12 percent.Mr. Adams, famously known for his swagger, has appeared chastened in recent weeks, and has seemed on the defensive.His aides immediately responded to the Quinnipiac poll by calling it “misleading” and sending out a torrent of book blurb-like hosannas of the mayor — some with nearly identical wording — from loyalists like Representative Adriano Espaillat, a key Dominican American power broker, and Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.Rob Speyer, the chief executive of the real estate investment firm Tishman Speyer, praised Mr. Adams’s “hustle and successes.” Steven Rubenstein, chairman of the Association for a Better New York, called the mayor a “champion for all New Yorkers.” The mayor’s stalwarts included other business and union leaders, a signal to potential challengers that the mayor still enjoys broad support from some of the city’s most influential constituencies.At a recent town hall meeting in East Harlem, Mr. Adams addressed his weaknesses head on. He started the event by addressing “two tough issues that you have been reading about,” and told the crowd that he did not break the law by helping the Turkish Consulate and that he did not sexually assault a woman who filed a legal claim against him for an incident she said happened in 1993.Mr. Adams’s ties to Turkish interests, including the Turkish Consulate, are being examined by federal investigators.Sara Hylton for The New York Times“You know my character,” he said. “You know what I stand for.”In most mayoral election cycles in New York, Democratic incumbents are virtually untouchable. But amid Mr. Adams’s problems, more Democrats are weighing potential candidacies — either when Mr. Adams faces re-election in 2025, or in the case of a special election if he were to resign or be forced from office.One past Adams donor, Jean Shafiroff, the wife of a prominent banker, said that she was waiting to see what happens with the F.B.I. investigation and the sexual assault allegation before participating in any more fund-raisers. She said that she works on women’s rights issues and felt conflicted.“It’s difficult for me right now, as much as I believe the mayor is innocent,” she said in a phone interview on Friday from Miami where she was attending the Art Basel art event.Mr. Cuomo has spoken to people about potentially running for mayor under the right circumstances, according to three people who have spoken to him and who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. Cuomo’s allies have insisted that the former governor, who resigned in 2021 after facing a series of sexual harassment allegations, would consider running for mayor only if Mr. Adams was no longer in the race.“He is not going to run against the mayor,” Charlie King, a Democratic strategist who is close to Mr. Cuomo, said in an interview.Matt Wing, a former adviser to Ms. Garcia, signaled that she might be open to running, saying in a statement: “In the chaos of a special election, New York City will need stability over political spectacle. And there’s only one leader in the potential field ready to meet the moment with competence, character and deep-rooted city management experience, which is perhaps why Kathryn stands out.”Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller whose bid for mayor in 2021 was derailed by sexual misconduct allegations, has had conversations with former staffers about moving quickly to run in a special election, according to a person who was familiar with the matter.When Mr. Adams took office two years ago, he was heralded as a national Democratic star and a moderate who made a compelling case for improving public safety. He called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn.”President Biden, who once counted the mayor as a trusted ally, has not spoken to Mr. Adams in months, and his aides and allies now view the mayor as a grandstanding opportunist because he publicly criticized the White House for not providing enough help to the city to deal with the migrant crisis.Now, as the mayor faces questions about his management ability, even his agenda seems more uncertain.On Monday, City Council leaders will hold an oversight hearing to scrutinize the mayor’s cuts to the Police Department, schools and libraries. They are hoping to reverse some of the cuts and to find ways to raise additional revenue.Progressive leaders say that the mayor’s low approval rating shows that his budget cuts are unpopular, and they are hoping to capitalize on his weakened political position by pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy.“What we hear from this poll is that New Yorkers are asking elected officials to invest in a progressive agenda — affordable housing, schools, sanitation, libraries,” said Ana María Archila, a state director of the Working Families Party, which has had conversations with left-leaning candidates about running against Mr. Adams.Later this month, the mayor may face a battle with the City Council over solitary confinement in city jails. Mr. Adams has threatened to veto a ban, arguing that it would put correction officers in harm’s way. But Mr. Williams and City Council leaders have pushed forward with a bill, saying that the practice is torture.The City Council may vote on the ban at its Dec. 20 meeting, and likely has enough votes to override a veto, should the mayor choose to do so. Mr. Adams’s first major veto in June — aimed to stop a housing bill that expanded a rental voucher program — was overridden by the Council.That rental voucher expansion is nearing a Jan. 9 deadline for implementation, and leaders in the City Council are contemplating suing the Adams administration because they believe it is intentionally not moving forward with the plan, according to Council officials.Diana Ayala, the deputy speaker of the City Council who is considering running for mayor, said that Mr. Adams had undermined the Council and refused to work with leadership to address the city’s many crises.“He’s arrogant, and that arrogance is not helpful,” she said.Shahana Hanif, a chair of the Council’s progressive caucus, said that Council members were becoming more comfortable challenging the mayor given his issues.“These incidents are emboldening our colleagues to feel like this is a mayor who doesn’t have his campaign, personal life, nor the city’s best interests at heart,” Ms. Hanif said. “He is a mess.”Perhaps the most telling sign of Mr. Adams’s diminished stature can be seen in the recent responses of Mr. Lander, the city comptroller and another possible mayoral candidate. He recently curtailed Mr. Adams’s ability to quickly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the migrant crisis.Earlier this year, Mr. Adams openly mocked Mr. Lander’s voice and his left-leaning politics at news conferences. Now Mr. Lander has returned the favor in a recent fund-raising email, chiding the mayor for his campaign’s ties to the Turkish government.“Turkey should have a special place on your Thanksgiving table,” Mr. Lander’s fund-raising email said. “And that’s the only kind of special treatment that Turkey should have in New York City.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      Republican Voters May Decide Mayor’s Race in Democratic Houston

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      The nonpartisan race to lead the nation’s fourth-largest city ends Saturday in a runoff between two longtime Democrats who have sparred over public safety.Leonard Wickers, a 73-year-old carpenter, took a break from building a new house in South Houston to cast a ballot during early voting this week for the city’s mayoral runoff election.Like most at the polling site in a largely Black neighborhood, Mr. Wickers, who is Black, said he backed Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a fixture of Democratic politics and the Black community in Houston who has the support of the outgoing mayor, Sylvester Turner, as well as party luminaries like Bill and Hillary Clinton.But Mr. Wickers had little enthusiasm for his vote. And, if he was being honest, he would not mind if her opponent, John Whitmire, a white politician and another longtime Democrat, prevailed. “That’s all for show,” Mr. Wickers said of the race. “Nothing’s getting done. The streets are still raggedy.”His sentiments appear to be broadly shared. Houstonians may have many complaints about their city — crime and traffic, housing costs and garbage collection and the difficulty of getting a permit to do anything — but in contrast to the roiling divides and bitter clashes that characterized recent municipal elections in Los Angeles and Chicago, the race to lead the nation’s fourth-largest city has produced scant fireworks or fanfare.“What if we held a mayor election and nobody came?” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “That’s effectively where we are.”The mayoral candidate John Whitmire, 74, has been in the State Senate since 1983. Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressIn part that is because, for the first time in years, a nonpartisan mayoral race in Houston will end in a runoff, on Saturday, featuring two prominent politicians who are both Democrats: Ms. Jackson Lee, 73, in Congress since 1995, and Mr. Whitmire, 74, who has been in the State Senate since 1983.It may also be because no single issue has galvanized the electorate or motivated turnout. Even crime, which voters cite as a top concern, is on the decline, according to police statistics.“The economy is good in Houston, housing prices could be a little bit more affordable, but in a general sense, things are going well,” said Gene Wu, a state representative who endorsed Mr. Whitmire. “There are always potholes. But you know what, even the pothole situation has gotten better.”Ms. Jackson Lee came with some baggage: decades of partisan fights, including over the Iraq War and gay rights, a reputation for being tough on staff and frequent grabs at the television spotlight. Large numbers of Houston voters already knew her, and many did not like her. In a University of Houston poll this fall, 43 percent of respondents said they would “never” vote for her, compared with just 15 percent refusing to vote for Mr. Whitmire.In a city whose diversity is a point of civic pride, it is Mr. Whitmire who has been leading in polls. If elected, he would be the first white male mayor to lead Houston since Bill White, more than a decade ago.“Was he the perfect candidate? No,” Michelle Naff, 56, who lives in Ms. Jackson Lee’s district, said after casting a ballot for Mr. Whitmire during the first round of voting in November. “But I do not like her as my congresswoman.”The two Democrats have struggled to draw bright lines between each other on issues. In separate interviews with The New York Times, both stressed the need for effective management in City Hall, a desire to attract new businesses to Houston and a focus on public safety.“If the perception is you are unsafe, that matters,” Mr. Whitmire said, adding that he no longer goes out to shop in stores at night. “It affects our economy.” Mr. Whitmire has promised to work with Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration to bring in state troopers to help patrol, even as a similar approach in Austin, a progressive university town, resulted in pushback over racial profiling concerns.“Houston is not Austin,” he said.Ms. Jackson Lee also stressed the need to provide public safety, but said she would do so using local officers, and in a way that addressed injustices. “I want to make sure that social justice is alongside of a wonderful, strong group of law enforcement and fire fighters,” she said.More than Mr. Whitmire, she talked about affordable housing — a relatively new issue for Houston, a sprawling city long known for its low housing prices — and about improving the city’s image nationally.“I think we have to give Houston a new brand,” she said. “My theme is, let’s make Houston pop.”When Ms. Jackson Lee jumped into the race in March, she appeared to present a stark contrast to, and potentially stiff competition for, Mr. Whitmire, the presumptive front-runner, who was seen by many Democrats as too moderate and too aligned with Republicans.Two young Black Democratic candidates dropped out of the race, leaving Ms. Jackson with a clear shot to challenge Mr. Whitmire.“I think we have to give Houston a new brand,” Representative Sheila Jackson Lee said. “My theme is, let’s make Houston pop.”Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressBut her campaign started late and has had stumbles. A recent television ad featured the wrong date for the election. She faced renewed questions about her treatment of staff members after a recording became public of a woman, said to be Ms. Jackson Lee, berating her staff. “I know that I am not perfect,” she said in a statement in response.Mr. Whitmire has had a significant fund-raising advantage, spending millions on television advertisements and mailers. Outside groups, including one run by retired police officers, have also flooded mailboxes attacking Ms. Jackson Lee.Mr. Whitmire has faced scrutiny over past conflicts of interest because of his role as a state legislator and his work as a lawyer for a firm whose clients had interests before the state. And he faced attacks from Mayor Turner, who cannot run again because of term limits, after Mr. Whitmire said during a debate that there was a lack of Asian and Hispanic diversity among municipal leaders, many of whom, like Mr. Turner, are Black.“That’s a dog whistle,” Mr. Turner said at a City Council meeting.The contest has underscored the complicated way race and ethnicity plays into a nonpartisan election in a city where no single group of voters is dominant.While roughly 45 percent of the population is Hispanic, according to census data, the figure overestimates the community’s voting power, said Hector de León, a former local elections official. The average age of voters in a municipal election is around 60, said Mr. de León, who publishes a website analyzing election data. “The overwhelming majority of Hispanic registered voters are way below that age, and it is a challenge to get young people to vote regardless of their race or ethnicity,” he said.The nonpartisan nature of the race also means that, even though Houston generally votes for Democrats in national and statewide races, Republican voters hold immense sway.“To win a nonpartisan race, you have to have some bipartisan appeal,” said Odus Evbagharu, a consultant and the former head of the Democratic Party in Harris County, which includes Houston.From the start, Mr. Whitmire has actively courted Republican support, launching his run with an event last year attended by prominent local Republican donors. He has played up his bipartisan experience while also stressing his identity as a Democrat and his endorsements from groups traditionally aligned with Democrats, like the AFL-CIO.In his interview with The Times, Mr. Whitmire said that he opposed the Republican positions on women’s health care and on border security. At the same time, he presented himself as a moderate on municipal issues. He talked about his experience being held at gunpoint with his wife and young daughter during a robbery in the driveway of their Houston home in the 1990s, stressed his ability to work with Republicans in the State Capitol and voiced his opposition to some of Houston’s new bike lanes, which he said created traffic backups.Ms. Jackson Lee, for her part, said she too could work with Republicans, citing her work with Senator John Cornyn of Texas creating the Juneteenth national holiday. More