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      Sheriff’s Deputies Shoot Woman Inside Friend’s Home in Houston, Authorities Say

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      Body camera footage released on Saturday showed the two Harris County deputies repeatedly firing through the apartment’s window after a report of a break-in.A Houston woman was shot in her friend’s apartment this month by sheriff’s deputies who responded to a report of a break-in and fired repeatedly into the home, according to a statement and body camera footage released by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.Early on Feb. 3, the woman, Eboni Pouncy, and her friend smashed a window to get inside after forgetting the house key, according to a statement released last week by the civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who is representing Ms. Pouncy.The women were startled when, after 2 a.m., the deputies began pounding on the door, according Mr. Crump. Fearing an intruder, Ms. Pouncy picked up her legally registered firearm and, shortly after, was struck by five bullets, he said.Emergency medical workers took Ms. Pouncy to a hospital for treatment, the sheriff’s office said. While the nature of her injuries was unclear, Mr. Crump said in his statement that she was recovering.According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the two deputies responded to a report of an intruder at an apartment on the city’s east side at around 2:10 a.m. but found no one inside. Shortly afterward, a resident of a neighboring apartment told the deputies that someone had broken into another second-floor apartment, the sheriff’s office said. When deputies went to investigate the break-in, they found the front window screen removed, broken glass and the blinds raised near the front door, the sheriff’s office said.The footage, retrieved from deputies’ body-worn cameras and released on Saturday, shows the two deputies, who appear to be women, climbing the apartment staircase, knocking on the front door and then retreating a few feet away. One of the deputies says she sees someone coming and shouts, and then both deputies begin firing repeatedly through the glass windows. Both reload their guns and continue to fire several times.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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      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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      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

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      Black Mayors of 4 Biggest U.S. Cities Draw Strength From One Another

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      The mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.As the race for Los Angeles mayor began to tighten late last year, Karen Bass, the presumptive favorite, received some notes of encouragement from a kindred spirit: Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago.Ms. Lightfoot had successfully navigated a similar political path in 2019, becoming the first Black woman to be elected mayor of her city, much as Ms. Bass was trying to do in Los Angeles.And even though Ms. Bass’s billionaire opponent had poured $100 million into the race and boasted endorsements from celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, Ms. Lightfoot urged her Democratic colleague to keep the faith in a series of personal visits and text messages.“She was up against somebody who was very, very moneyed and was leaning into people’s fears about crime, about homelessness — frankly, very similar to the circumstances that I’m facing now in my city in getting re-elected,” Ms. Lightfoot said in an interview. “I just wanted to make sure that she knew that I was there for her.”Ms. Lightfoot and Ms. Bass belong to an informal alliance of four big-city mayors tackling among the toughest jobs in America. They happen to be of similar mind in how to address their cities’ common problems, like violent crime, homelessness and rising overdose deaths.They also happen to be Black: When Ms. Bass took office in December, the nation’s four largest cities all had Black mayors for the first time.The Democratic mayors — Ms. Bass, Ms. Lightfoot, Eric Adams of New York City and Sylvester Turner of Houston — say their shared experiences and working-class roots as Black Americans give them a different perspective on leading their cities than most of their predecessors.Mr. Adams visited Mayor Lightfoot last year during a fund-raising trip to Chicago.Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressIn interviews, the four mayors discussed how their backgrounds helped shape their successful campaigns, and how they provide a unique prism to view their cities’ problems.“We have to be bold in looking at long entrenched problems, particularly on poverty and systemic inequality,” Ms. Lightfoot said. “We’ve got to look those in the face and we’ve got to fight them, and break down the barriers that have really held many of our residents back from being able to realize their God-given talent.”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Michigan G.O.P.: Michigan Republicans picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for secretary of state.Dianne Feinstein: The Democratic senator of California will not run for re-election in 2024, clearing the way for what is expected to be a costly and competitive race to succeed the iconic political figure.Lori Lightfoot: As the mayor of Chicago seeks a second term at City Hall, her administration is overseeing the largest experiment in guaranteed basic income in the nation.Union Support: In places like West Virginia, money from three major laws passed by Congress is pouring into the alternative energy industry and other projects. Democrats hope it will lead to increased union strength.To do so can require navigating a delicate balancing act.Ms. Bass was a community organizer who witnessed the riots after the Rodney King verdict; Mr. Adams drew attention to police brutality after being beaten by the police as a teenager.As a congresswoman, Ms. Bass took a leading role in 2020 after George Floyd’s death on legislation that aimed to prevent excessive use of force by police and promoted new officer anti-bias training. It was approved by the House, but stalled in the Senate, and President Biden later approved some of the measures by executive order.In Chicago, Ms. Lightfoot served as head of the Chicago Police Board and was a leader of a task force that issued a scathing report on relations between the Chicago police and Black residents. Mr. Adams founded a group called “100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care” in the 1990s.As mayors, all now in their 60s, they have criticized the “defund the police” movement, yet have also called for systemic policing changes.In Chicago and New York, Ms. Lightfoot and Mr. Adams have pushed for police spending increases and have flooded the subway with officers. That has invited criticism from criminal justice advocates who say they have not moved quickly enough to reform the departments.“As a city, we have to have a police department that is successful,” Ms. Lightfoot said. “And to me, successful is defined by making sure that they’re the best trained police department, that they understand that the legitimacy in the eyes of the public is the most important tool that they have, and that we also support our officers — it’s a really hard and dangerous job.”Mr. Adams agreed. “We can’t have police misconduct, but we also know we must ensure that we support those officers that are doing the right thing and dealing with violence in our cities,” he said.The four mayors have highlighted their backgrounds to show that they understand the importance of addressing inequality. Mr. Adams was raised by a single mother who cleaned homes. Ms. Bass’s father was a postal service letter carrier. Ms. Lightfoot’s mother worked the night shift as a nurse’s aide. Mr. Turner was the son of a painter and a maid.Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a prominent left-leaning group, said the mayors’ lived experience was all the more reason for them to “take a more expansive view of Black life that is expressed in their policies and in their budgeting,” and to prioritize schools, libraries, youth jobs and mental health care.“We want our communities invested in, in the way that other communities are invested in and the investment should not simply come through more police,” he said.In December, Ms. Bass became the first Black woman to be elected mayor of Los Angeles.Lauren Justice for The New York TimesThe four serve as only the second elected Black mayors of their respective cities. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago each went more than 30 years between electing their first Black mayor and the second; Houston went nearly two decades.The mayors have worked together through the U.S. Conference of Mayors as well as the African American Mayors Association, which was founded in 2014 and has more than 100 members — giving the four Black mayors an additional pipeline to coordinate with other cities’ leaders.“Because we’re still experiencing firsts in 2023, it’s our obligation that we’re successful,” said Frank Scott Jr., the first elected Black mayor of Little Rock, Ark., who leads the African American Mayors Association. “It’s our obligation that to the best of our ability we’re above reproach, to ensure that we’re not the last and to ensure that it doesn’t take another 20 to 30 years to see another Black mayor.”Of the four, Ms. Bass, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is perhaps the most left-leaning, characterizing herself as a “pragmatic progressive” who said she saw similarities between Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and herself as a young activist.“That’s who I was — that’s who I still am,” Ms. Bass said. “It’s just that, after a while, you want to begin to make a very concrete difference in people’s lives, as opposed to your positions and educating.” On her first day as mayor, Ms. Bass won praise for declaring a state of emergency on homelessness that gives the city expanded powers to speed up the construction of affordable housing. She also supports legislation by the Los Angeles City Council, known as “just cause” eviction protections, that bars landlords from evicting renters in most cases.A similar law in New York has stalled in the State Legislature, though supporters are hoping to pass it this year and have called on Mr. Adams to do more to help them.All the cities share a homeless crisis, as well as potential solutions. Houston has become a national model during Mr. Turner’s tenure for a “housing first” program that moved 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses over the last decade.Now New York City is starting a pilot program based on Houston’s approach that will move 80 homeless people into permanent supportive housing without having to go through the shelter system.Mr. Turner, a lawyer who became mayor in 2016, said he called Mr. Adams after he won a close primary in New York in 2021 to offer his support. He defended Mr. Adams’s plan to involuntarily remove severely mentally ill people from the streets — a policy that has received pushback in New York.“I applaud him on that,” Mr. Turner said. “Is it controversial or some people will find controversy in it? Yes. But what is the alternative? To keep them where they are?”Mr. Turner, who is in his final year in office because of term limits, said he set out with a goal of making Houston more equitable. “I didn’t want to be the mayor of two cities in one,” he said.“I recognized the fact that there are many neighborhoods that have been overlooked and ignored for decades,” he later added. “I grew up in one of those communities and I still live in that same community.”Mr. Turner has claimed success for a “housing first” program that moved 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses over the last decade in Houston.Go Nakamura for The New York TimesAnxiety among voters about the future of their cities could make it difficult for the mayors to succeed. Ms. Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term, faces eight opponents when Chicago holds its mayoral election on Feb. 28, and her own campaign shows her polling at 25 percent — well below the 50 percent she would need to avoid a runoff.Mr. Adams, a former police officer who was elected on the strength of a public safety message, has seen his support fall to 37 percent as he enters his second year in office, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.Concerns about crime are affecting both mayors. Chicago had nearly 700 murders last year, a major increase from about 500 murders in 2019 before the pandemic. In New York City, there were 438 murders last year, compared with 319 in 2019.In March, Mr. Adams met with Ms. Lightfoot while visiting Chicago for a fund-raiser at the home of Desirée Rogers, the former White House social secretary for President Barack Obama. At a joint news conference with Ms. Lightfoot, Mr. Adams reiterated his position that the communities most affected by policing abuses also tend to need the most protection.“All of these cities are dealing with the same crises, but there’s something else — the victims are Black and brown,” Mr. Adams said.Of the four mayors, Mr. Adams, in particular, has sought to align his colleagues behind an “urban agenda,” and to call in unison for federal help with the migrant crisis.Mr. Adams has also argued that the mayors’ messaging should be a model for Democratic Party leadership to follow, rather than what he called the “woke” left wing that he has quarreled with in New York.“The Democratic message was never to defund police,” he said, adding: “We’re just seeing the real Democratic message emerge from this group of mayors.” More

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      After Election Problems in Houston, Republicans Seek to Overturn Results

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      A growing number of contests to elections in Texas’ Harris County are a broad attempt to cast doubt on an Election Day that officials concede had problems.HOUSTON — Jon Rosenthal has seen some close races, but his re-election to the Texas State House in November, in a Houston district redrawn to be a virtual lock for Democrats, was not one of them. Mr. Rosenthal won by 15 points.So it came as a surprise when his Republican challenger in the race contested the results, petitioning the State Legislature to order a new election.Another surprise came late Thursday when the Republican candidate for the top executive position in Harris County, which includes Houston, announced that she, too, would contest her much narrower loss, by about 18,000 votes, to the progressive Democrat who is the county’s incumbent chief executive, Lina Hidalgo. By Friday, more than a dozen losing Republican candidates had filed suits to contest the results of their races.Election Day in Harris County, Texas’ largest county, saw a range of problems at polling places, including some that opened late and others that ran out of paper for printing voted ballots. A court ordered the polls to stay open an extra hour to compensate; then the Texas Supreme Court stepped in and halted the extra voting.Republicans, who have been watching closely for election issues in races around the country, seized on the difficulties in Harris County, which is becoming a Democratic stronghold. Candidates called into question the reliability of the results in a bitter and expensive campaign that failed to dislodge Ms. Hidalgo and a slate of Democratic judges.“It is inexcusable that after two months, the public is no further along in knowing if, and to what extent, votes were suppressed,” said Alexandra del Moral Mealer in explaining her decision to contest her loss to Ms. Hidalgo, adding that her challenge was “fundamentally about protecting the right to vote in free and fair elections.”Candidates called into question the reliability of the results in a bitter campaign that ended with Republicans failing to oust Lina Hidalgo and a slate of Democratic judges. Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesElection contests are not uncommon in Texas, often involving down-ballot races in small counties where the margins are often notably slim. But the challenges in Harris County appeared to be uniquely broad in their attempt to cast doubt on much of the voting process in an election that involved 1.1 million votes. They followed calls from state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, for an investigation into the county’s handling of the election. The local district attorney opened an inquiry in November.The election contests in Harris County have at times resembled the one mounted in Arizona by the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, who has sought to overturn her loss by claiming that election officials in one major county deliberately disenfranchised her voters. A judge dismissed her claims last month for lack of evidence.But the latest contests in Texas have little precedent, said the Harris County attorney, Christian Menefee, a Democrat. “To my knowledge, this is the first election contest filed in Harris County that is wholly focused on these kinds of process failures,” Mr. Menefee said in an interview.The sprawling Texas county has shifted more decisively in the direction of Democrats in the last few election cycles, following in the direction of other major Texas population centers.For a variety of reasons, it has struggled to conduct elections smoothly, drawing repeated scrutiny from Republican lawmakers in the State Capitol. The county’s size has been a challenge, covering an area nearly the size of Delaware with 2.5 million registered voters and more than 700 polling places. It has struggled with newly mandated voting systems and has not had steady leadership at its elections office, with three different administrators since 2020.An audit of the 2020 election, conducted by the secretary of state, highlighted a range of issues, including instances where Harris County did not handle its electronic records properly, though there was no evidence of widespread fraud.Several steps that the county took during the coronavirus pandemic to make it easier to vote in Houston — such as limited 24-hour voting and drive-through polling places — also drew criticism from Republicans, who argued that the changes had made the election less secure. The Republican-dominated State Legislature, in its last session, took steps to curtail many of the measures.Voters waited in line at Damascus Missionary Baptist Church on Election Day in Houston in November.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesOn Election Day in November, the county experienced problems at a number of polling places, including several that were significantly delayed in opening and others that reported running out of paper ballots.A judge ordered polling places in the county to remain open for an extra hour after the Texas Organizing Project, a nonprofit, filed suit over the issues, claiming that voters were being prevented from casting ballots. The Texas Supreme Court stepped in and stayed the ruling in response to a challenge from the Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. The court eventually allowed about 2,000 provisional ballots that were cast during the extra voting time to be added to the official count.The county elections administrator, Clifford Tatum, has defended the election process and said the issues that came up reflected small problems in an otherwise well-run election. “Overall, Election Day was a success,” a postelection report from Mr. Tatum’s office concluded.But the report, released last week, also found that the county’s voting system was in “an immediate need of upgrades or replacements” to correct software issues, simplify voting day setup and create a system for the elections administrator to know in the moment whether problems reported at polling places had been resolved.The Harris County Republican Party has focused on a broad range of issues that arose on Election Day, including not only sites that ran out of paper ballots but also others where poll workers incorrectly fed paper ballots into the voting machines.In its report, the election administrator’s office said that officials at 68 voting centers reported running out of the initial allotment of paper on Election Day, and that only 61 of them said they had received deliveries of more paper.But it remained unclear how many voters were turned away because of the paper shortages, in part because, according to the report, some of the election judges “declined to speak after reportedly being advised not to do so by the Harris County Republican Party.”A spokeswoman for the county Republican Party, Genevieve Carter, denied any such instructions. “We encouraged them to provide their firsthand account of any issues that occurred,” she said. “Our goal is to get to the bottom of what went wrong during this election.”The party’s lawyers and leaders have not claimed that they can prove their candidates should have won. Instead, they have argued that the scope of the problems on Election Day were so great — including, they claimed, allowing some voters to cast ballots who were no longer eligible to do so in the county — that the true results in the election cannot be known; they are demanding that new elections be held. (More than two-thirds of the ballots were cast either during early voting or by mail, not on Election Day.)“We have a systematic cancer that has invaded our election process,” said the chair of the county Republican Party, Cindy Siegel.Democrats have not raised public challenges, but have privately complained that the repeated issues in the election process in Houston were not being adequately addressed, giving Republicans fuel for their efforts to pass new restrictive laws and, now, election contests.Jon Rosenthal said he believed the challenge to his election was frivolous, and that allowing it to go forward in the State House could cause future headaches for lawmakers. Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesOnly the candidates themselves can initiate the contests, and so far at least 14 have done so, including Ms. Mealer, a first-time candidate who received millions in campaign contributions from top Houston-area donors; Mr. Rosenthal’s challenger, Michael May; a candidate for county district clerk; and nine Republican judicial candidates.One of the earliest challenges came from a judicial candidate, Erin Lunceford, who lost by 2,743 votes, and filed suit late last year. Ms. Lunceford’s suit includes 19 separate claims of issues with the way votes were handled or counted during the November election and asks the court to void the judicial election and “declare that the true outcome of the election cannot be ascertained.” Ms. Lunceford is represented by Andy Taylor, an election lawyer for the county Republican Party.Ryan MacLeod, a lawyer for the Democrat who won the race, Tamika Craft, described the suit in court papers as a “stunt to make headlines” after an election was lost, and said that “no allegations are supported by facts” and that no evidence had been provided.In the latest challenge on Thursday to the outcome of the race for Harris County judge — effectively the county’s chief executive — Ms. Mealer’s lawyers focused primarily on the paper ballot issues, arguing that they had been concentrated in high-turnout Republican areas and that county officials had “suppressed the voting rights” of residents in those places.Ms. Hidalgo’s office referred questions to the county attorney, Mr. Menefee, who described the challenges as “frivolous attempts to overturn the votes of more than a million residents.”Unlike the other challenges, Mr. May’s contest to his loss against Mr. Rosenthal does not go before a judge, because it involved a State House race. Instead, under Texas law, it will be considered by state legislators, who reconvene this month. The House could decide that the challenge is frivolous and reject it quickly, or choose to investigate the allegations by gathering testimony and evidence before deciding whether the result should be voided and a new election held.Mr. May, in his petition, cited the paper ballot issues and argued that eligible voters were turned away and unable to cast ballots. He has not provided evidence and did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Rosenthal said he believed the challenge was frivolous and that allowing it to go forward could cause future headaches for lawmakers.“If there is life given to this, and there is no consequence for bringing something this frivolous, you’re setting up for election challenges across the state,” he said. “You could have dozens of challenges per cycle.” More

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      Texas County Asks for U.S. Election Monitors as State Plans to Send Inspectors

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      Officials from Harris County in Texas on Thursday requested federal election monitors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after the State of Texas confirmed this week that it would send a contingent of election inspectors there during the midterms in November. The state’s move added a layer of scrutiny tied to an active examination of vote counts from 2020 that former President Donald J. Trump had sought.But that step quickly drew criticism from some officials in Harris, Texas’ most populous county, which includes Houston. They accused the state of meddling in the county’s election activities as early in-person voting is about to begin on Monday in Texas.Christian D. Menefee, the county’s attorney, said in a statement on Thursday that the state’s postelection review was politically driven and initiated by Mr. Trump. Still, he said, the county would cooperate with the inspectors.“We’re going to grant them the access the law requires, but we know state leaders in Austin cannot be trusted to be an honest broker in our elections, especially an attorney general who filed a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Mr. Menefee said. “We cannot allow unwarranted disruptions in our election process to intimidate our election workers or erode voters’ trust in the election process.”The Justice Department did not immediately comment.The skirmish over the inspectors, who will arrive as votes are being counted, highlighted the recurring tensions between Republicans who hold power at the state level and officials in Harris County, which Democrats control and which Joseph R. Biden Jr. carried by 13 percentage points in 2020.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.The opposing forces previously clashed over the county’s expansion of voting access. Republicans in Texas enacted restrictions last year that included an end to balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, like drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. Both were popular in Harris County.In a letter detailing the inspection plan, Chad Ennis, the secretary of state’s forensic audit division director and a Republican, said on Tuesday that he still had concerns about some vote-count discrepancies from 2020 in Harris County.“These inspectors will perform randomized checks on election records, including tapes and chain of custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media,” Mr. Ennis said. The term “chain of custody” referred, in this case, to records of who had access to the equipment and why several mobile ballot boxes were created for some locations but only certain ones were used.No credible evidence has emerged of widespread voter fraud from Texas’ 2020 postelection review, which Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered to be conducted last year in the state’s four most populous counties at Mr. Trump’s urging. (Mr. Trump won in Texas with 52 percent of the vote in 2020.)Mr. Ennis also revealed on Tuesday that a task force from the Texas attorney general’s office would be dispatched to Harris County for the election to respond “at all times” to what he characterized as “legal issues” to be identified by the secretary of state, inspectors, poll watchers or voters. The specter of Election Day disputes is particularly heightened this year, with right-wing groups nationwide focused on challenging voters’ eligibility..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In a statement on Wednesday, Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat who is the top official in Harris County, assailed the state’s latest intervention.“The timing of this letter is — at best — suspicious,” Judge Hidalgo said. “It was sent just days before the start of early voting, potentially in an attempt to sabotage county efforts by sowing doubt in the elections process, or equally as bad, by opening the door to possible inappropriate state interference in Harris County’s elections.”Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state, said in an email on Thursday that it was commonplace for inspectors to be dispatched to counties.“I want to add — because I’m sure you will get histrionic statements from so-called ‘civil rights’ organizations in Texas claiming ‘voter intimidation’— that during the primaries this year, the Harris County elections office initially misplaced approximately 10,000 mail-in ballots,” Mr. Taylor said.On Thursday after the county asked for federal monitors, Mr. Taylor released another statement, calling Harris County’s request “an attempt to mislead voters, members of the public, the press and the U.S. Department of Justice.” He added that the “Texas secretary of state’s office has sent election inspectors to Harris County every year, and have never before seen a request for the Department of Justice to ‘monitor the monitors.’”At the time of the error Mr. Taylor cited, county officials said that they had neglected to count the ballots but that they were not misplaced. The county hired a third-party consulting firm to examine its elections operation and make recommendations for improvements.In a statement this week, Clifford Tatum, the Harris County elections administrator, said he was focused on the task at hand.“As you know, we’re five days away from the start of early voting for the Nov. 8 election, and we are focused foremost on ensuring this election runs smoothly,” Mr. Tatum said.Mr. Tatum did not preside over the primary in March in Harris County. He was appointed in August after Isabel Longoria, who had held the post, resigned during the fallout over the primary. More

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      Primary Day in Texas Will Offer Preview of Midterm Battles Ahead

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      Texas is holding the first primary election of 2022 on Tuesday. Some of the dynamics at play include the intensity of Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate.HOUSTON — The Texas primaries on Tuesday will provide the first pieces of the 2022 midterm puzzle.The strength of the two parties’ ideological factions. The intensity of Donald J. Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate. And, for bullish Republicans, the earliest signs of how advantageous the political climate has become.The full picture of the 2022 landscape will be revealed through a series of state-by-state primaries held over the next six months. But the country’s first primary elections in Texas represent almost a sneak peek of many of the coming dynamics nationwide in an increasingly challenging environment for President Biden and the Democrats. That includes the impact of strict new voting rules imposed by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature and the political salience of abortion for both parties.A Texas state law last year effectively banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and this year a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court is expected in the Mississippi abortion case, which could affect procedures in multiple states. In South Texas, progressives are attempting to defeat one of the last anti-abortion Democrats remaining in Congress, Representative Henry Cuellar, and they received a political gift when the F.B.I. recently raided his home. Falling short under those circumstances would be a blow for the left after Mr. Cuellar narrowly won two years ago.At the top of the ticket, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is widely expected to vault past two spirited right-wing challengers. But he is also likely to come nowhere close to the 90 percent he marshaled in his last primary four years ago, a testament to an increasingly restive Republican base.Mr. Abbott has aggressively catered to that base over the last year and in the campaign’s closing days, telling state agencies to investigate treatment for transgender adolescents as “child abuse” and suggesting he might pardon more than a dozen Austin police officers who were indicted on charges of using excessive force during racial justice protests in 2020.“Governor Abbott is running very hard and taking the campaign very, very seriously,” said Ray Sullivan, a Republican strategist who served under two Texas governors, Rick Perry and George W. Bush. “There is an ongoing battle: the mainstream conservatives versus more right-wing, more conspiratorial and paranoid voices. Some of the primary elections will help determine where the energy is in the party.”After redistricting, Texas lawmakers erased nearly all the House seats that were competitive in the general election from the map in 2022, magnifying the importance of a handful of contested primaries in both parties. Republicans, in particular, are hoping to build on the dramatic gains the party made in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, particularly among working-class Latino voters in 2020, in the state’s lone open, tossup seat.Nationwide, Republicans are energized by the chance to take back both the House, which the Democrats control by a historically narrow margin, and the Senate, which is equally divided with only Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote giving control to the Democrats.Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings — not just in Texas but even in Democratic strongholds like California — and the lingering cloud of the coronavirus on life, the economy and schools have emboldened many Republican voters, candidates and strategists.But Republicans fear nominating candidates outside the mainstream. The party suffered a series of stinging defeats in two otherwise favorable cycles in the recent past, 2014 and 2010, with candidates who repelled broad swaths of the political middle that still decides elections.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.The concern among Texas Republicans chiefly centers on the attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has attracted the attention of federal investigators after some of his own top aides accused him of corruption.Despite the hostile national climate, Democrats have scored some notable recruiting successes, including two high-profile candidates who came up just short in 2018: Beto O’Rourke, who is running for governor of Texas, and Stacey Abrams, who is running again for governor of Georgia.Beto O’Rourke campaigning for Texas governor in Tyler in early February.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke, whose Democratic nomination is mostly a formality, has been crisscrossing the state and raising money at a fast clip: $3 million in the last month. But Mr. Abbott, a prolific fund-raiser, outpaced him and entered the final days before the primary with $50 million on hand, compared to $6.8 million for Mr. O’Rourke.Texas has a two-step primary system: Any candidate who finishes below 50 percent will face off against the No. 2 vote-getter in a May runoff.Mr. Abbott appears to be leaving nothing to chance, spending $15 million in the last month alone and seeking to leave little daylight for his conservative opponents as he has overseen a sharp push to the far right in state government.Still, Mr. Abbott, who has Mr. Trump’s support, was booed in January at a Trump rally north of Houston, only winning over the crowd by invoking the president’s name more than two dozen times in his six-minute speech.“I think Greg Abbott has been in long enough,” said Anita Brown, 62, who attended a recent rally for a right-wing House candidate in The Woodlands, a suburban enclave north of Houston. “I would just like to have someone new.”Texas is where Mr. Trump suffered one of his rare primary endorsement defeats last year, in a House race, and while he has issued a range of endorsements, from governor down to Tarrant County District Attorney, he has mostly backed incumbents and heavy favorites.Bigger tests of his influence loom later in the spring and summer, in the Senate contests in North Carolina and Alabama, and in the governor’s race in Georgia. In that Georgia race, Mr. Trump recruited David Perdue, a former senator and governor, to attempt to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who refused to bend to Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.In Texas, Mr. Paxton, a regular guest on Fox News, commands the endorsement of Mr. Trump, but remains vulnerable because of his legal troubles: On top of his aides’ accusations of corruption, the Texas attorney general has been under indictment for securities fraud since 2015.His range of challengers represent the various Republican power centers vying to be the future of the party.There is George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush and a statewide office holder who has held himself out as the most electable conservative in the race, and Eva Guzman, a former state Supreme Court justice who has the backing of some traditional, business-aligned power players in Republican politics.Representative Louie Gohmert, a Trump ally whose speeches and remarks frequently land him on national television, is also running. He attended the Trump rally in Texas and got an unexpected shout-out, despite the former president’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton. Mr. Gohmert also posed with Mr. Trump during a photo line at the rally, but the Trump team refused to send Mr. Gohmert the picture, because they did not want him to use it in the primary, according to a person familiar with the exchange.Representative Louie Gohmert spoke at a forum in Midland with two other Republican candidates for attorney general, Eva Guzman, center, and George P. Bush, right.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe race has been multidimensional. Ms. Guzman has swiped at Mr. Bush, whose family dynasty has been weakened even among Texas Republicans. Mr. Bush has responded in kind. Mr. Paxton has traded attacks with Mr. Gohmert and, in recent days, started going after Ms. Guzman as well.“We haven’t seen a primary this consequential since the 1990s,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.The race is less about policy positions as it is about who holds power in the Republican Party now. “It will tell us a lot about Donald Trump’s juice in Texas,” Mr. Rottinghaus said.Mr. Paxton finished behind the rest of the Republican ticket in 2018, raising some fears that his renomination this year could provide a rare opening for Democrats in November. Republicans have won every statewide race in Texas since 1994.The national battle for power within the Republican Party is centered on the district of retiring Representative Kevin Brady, north of Houston, where a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has spent heavily to elect Morgan Luttrell, a Navy SEAL veteran. The activist wing of House Republicans has rallied behind Christian Collins, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz.While the super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy is aiding Mr. Luttrell, the political arm of the House Freedom Caucus is boosting Mr. Collins.At a recent rally for Mr. Collins, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina made clear that their support for Mr. Collins was about opposition to the existing political order in Washington.“This is primary season,” Ms. Greene said. “This is where we work out our differences. This is where iron sharpens iron.”On the Democratic side, two primaries pit the party’s ideological wings against each other.The race for one open seat features a socialist Austin city councilman, Greg Casar, taking on State Representative Eddie Rodriguez. The other race is in South Texas between Mr. Cuellar and a young progressive lawyer, Jessica Cisneros — a rematch in which abortion has been an issue for the district’s large number of Catholic voters.Both races have attracted attention from national progressive figures, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — to the frustration of some Texas Democrats. They view the progressives’ efforts as potentially counterproductive for a party that has been losing ground among traditional Democratic voters in places like South Texas.“I get what people do on the fund-raising side,” said James Aldrete, a Democratic consultant. But unless Democrats do more to address the concerns of low-turnout voters, particularly in Hispanic communities, Mr. Aldrete added, “we’ll be in the same boat: no growth in the statehouse, no growth in the congressional delegation, no Democrat elected statewide.”When Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declared at a rally for Mr. Casar and Ms. Cisneros that “Texas turning blue is inevitable,” the clip was immediately picked up by Republicans, including Mr. Abbott, and wielded as an attack.“She was doing the work for Republicans,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic activist whose political action committee aims to unseat Republicans in Texas. He noted that Texas Democrats are more moderate in their approach to politics and more conservative in their views on issues like guns and abortion than national party leaders.“It’s a field trip for them,” Mr. Angle added. “For us, it’s the future of the state.” More