Category Archives: Mayor

A Democratic Sweep: Sherrill, Spanberger, Mamdani and More All Win

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025

Elections

New York City voters elected Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as their next Mayor.

Last night’s election results yielded victories for Democrats across the board and it appears that high prices and the state of the economy are among the top reasons.

Of course, Democrats will argue that their attacks against President Trump compared to the election results is a rejection of the current administration, and the votes provide evidence for such a claim, but New Jersey and New York City are heavily Democratic enclaves, and the Washington, DC metropolitan area, including the Northern Virginia and Maryland suburbs have repeatedly proven itself as the most anti-Trump region in the country.

Therefore, within the partisan context, the election results should not be considered overly surprising.

New York City

As expected, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (Democratic/Working Families) was elected Mayor of New York City last night, capturing what looks to be a bare majority of the vote.

In the end, it appears the self-described Democratic Socialist outpaced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (Fight and Deliver Party), and Curtis Sliwa (Republican/Protect Animals Party) by a 50.4 – 41.6 – 7.1 percent margin. Polling did not fully capture Mamdani’s strength, nor Republican Sliwa’s weakness. In particular, the latter man polled approximately ten points better on average than his ultimate performance.

Certainly, barely going over the 50 percent mark gives Mamdani the mandate he needs to implement his more radical agenda, and certainly will have support to do so from the New York City Council. Much more to come in the ensuing weeks about this result and the new Mamdani Administration.

New Jersey

This gubernatorial election outcome was one of the most surprising decisions of last night as Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) scored what will likely be a 56-43 percent win over 2021 Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli despite polling that suggested the race was falling into the toss-up range.

The Sherrill victory represents the first time a political party has won three consecutive New Jersey gubernatorial elections since World War II.

With the Congresswoman’s victory, we will see another special congressional election, this time in her 11th District seat. Sherrill will resign from the House shortly before she assumes the Governorship in mid-January. One of her first duties will be to schedule the special election for voters to elect her successor. Already vying for positioning are former NJ-7 Congressman Tom Malinowski (D) and several local Democratic officials.

Virginia

Polling in this race was spot on, as survey research firms were not only consistently projecting an Abigail Spanberger victory, but they also saw the surge for the Democratic candidates in the final week of early voting and on Election Day. The combination carried not only Spanberger, but also Lt. Gov.-Elect Ghazala Hashmi and Attorney General-Elect Jay Jones to victory as part of the Democratic sweep.

The most surprising result was Jones defeating AG Miyares after the controversy broke several weeks ago about him fantasizing about killing his Republican opponents. Much analysis about the Attorney General’s result will be forthcoming over the next period of days when the actual results can be digested.

California Proposition 50

As expected, last night Golden State special election voters easily adopted the referendum to replace the California Citizens Redistricting Commission congressional map with a plan that Gov. Gavin Newsom had drawn. The redraw gerrymander could net the Democrats five seats and reduce the Republicans to four of the state’s 52 congressional districts.

Whether the map actually produces such results remain to be seen in the 2026 election. We can expect to see legal challenges to the entire process to soon be forthcoming but with a strong public vote, overturning the new map becomes very difficult.

TX-18

The jungle primary for the third of four special congressional elections to fill vacancies was held in Houston last night. The results will go to a runoff election that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) will schedule as soon as the Secretary of State verifies that no candidate received a majority of the vote.

The verification will come quickly, since Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee (D) and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards (D) placed first and second with 32 and 25 percent of the vote, respectively. Therefore, no one came close to obtaining majority support.

The problem for whoever wins the runoff election, which will likely be in January, is that he or she will have to turn around and participate in a March 3, 2026, primary in another version of the 18th District and against incumbent Rep. Al Green (D-Houston) under the new Texas congressional map.

The Democrats are assured of keeping the 18th District seat to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston), but the prize may be short-lived because the regular primary in the new district will be just weeks after securing victory.

Election Day Preview

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025

Elections

The major odd-numbered elections are upon us with early voting completed and election day occurring today in New Jersey, New York City, and Virginia. Polling projects a good night forthcoming for Democrats, but the available early voting statistics suggest Republicans might be stronger than the polls indicate.

New Jersey

The open Governor’s race is the main focus on the Garden State ballot, and it may well become the most interesting contest to follow tonight.

The polling momentum has closed in Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s favor with the latest five publicly released surveys from the Oct. 25-30 period finding Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) holding an average 3.4 percentage point advantage. This number is down from a much higher range, usually in the upper single digits, for most of the race.

Furthermore, if the SoCal Strategies poll (Oct. 28-29; 800 likely New Jersey voters) is removed from the group because its seven-point spread (52-45 percent) is an outlier when compared with the other four (Atlas Intel, Emerson College, Quantus Insights, and Suffolk University), the Sherrill average point lead drops to 2.5.

Additionally, Ciattarelli has under-polled in his previous races, particularly in the primary earlier this year and by a large amount. Going into the five-way 2025 Republican primary, Ciattarelli’s highest preference number was 54 percent yet he ended with a 68 percent actual vote total. Should this Ciattarelli under-poll pattern continue in this year’s general election, we could see an upset.

New Jersey early voting statistics are not as available as in some other places, but Ciattarelli’s assessment that more Republicans are voting early that ever before appears correct. According to CBS News, approximately 514,500 Democrats have voted early as compared to an approximate 279,000 Republicans, and 177,000 non-affiliated and minor party voters.

These raw number figures translate into 56.5 percent of the early voters being Democrats, 30.6 percent Republicans, and 12.9 percent non-affiliated and others. While the Democrats lead the early vote count, their percentage is down from 2024 when the Dems accounted for 68.0 percent of the early voting participation numbers and 2022 when their percentage was 59.9 according to the Target Early Target Smart organization calculations.

Though the 2025 Republican number is much smaller than the Democratic percentage, it is up from 27.4 percent in 2024, but down from a 32.2 percent participation factor in 2022. The Non-affiliated/ Other category accounted for 4.7 percent of the early voters in 2024 and 7.9 percent in 2022. Therefore, the NA/O segment’s 12.9 percent early turnout is considerably ahead of the previous elections.

New York City

While Assemblyman and New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s (D) polling percentages are falling somewhat as Election Day dawns, the three-way candidate structure virtually assures that he will win tomorrow’s election, but likely with only a plurality of the votes.

While the majority of NYC voters are likely to choose a mayoral candidate other than the Democratic nominee, the split between former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (I) and Republican Curtis Sliwa will benefit Mamdani.

Since the race has not changed greatly since Cuomo entered under a minor party label after losing the Democratic primary, today’s outcome is unlikely to be surprising.

Virginia

In the Old Dominion’s gubernatorial race, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger is clearly favored to defeat Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and convert the commonwealth’s Governorship to the Democrats. Incumbent Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is ineligible to seek re-election under the only one-term limit law in the country.

The final five Virginia gubernatorial polls conducted during the Oct. 25-31 period (from Atlas Intel, Echelon Insights, Insider Advantage/Trafalgar Group, SoCal Strategies, and State Navigate) give Spanberger leads of between four and 12 points, margins she has maintained for most of the election cycle.

Yet, the early vote numbers tend to suggest an improved GOP standing. All five of the state’s congressional districts where the electorate sends a Republican to the US House have substantially improved their early vote participation rates when compared to 2021.

According to the latest available reports from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), the statewide increase in early voting is just under 10 percent. All five Republican House districts, however, are up between 20 and 41.9 percent in early voting participation through Friday.

From the six Democratic districts, only two report increased turnout compared to 2021, and even this pair’s increase is below the statewide average. The other four Democratic congressional districts, at least through Friday’s count, have failed to equal their previous 2021 early voting numbers.

Since Virginia’s early voting numbers are not measured by political party preference, largely because the Old Dominion does not register voters by party, it is difficult to tell if the congressional district breakdowns accurately reflect the partisan composition of 2025 early voting.

The clue, however, that the Republican represented districts are all substantially up in early voting and most of the Democratic seats are down should suggest that Republicans are likely to outperform their polling standing.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that the Republicans won the 2021 election, so Democrats falling behind their losing benchmark numbers from the previous election is another clue that 2025 Virginia voter enthusiasm is higher on the GOP side.

The most likely outcome of tomorrow’s election, however, is a Spanberger victory, a closer Lieutenant Governor’s race, but one that still suggests a slight victory for Democratic nominee Ghazala Hashmi, and a Republican victory for Attorney General Jason Miyares, largely due to the controversy surrounding Democratic nominee Jay Jones.

Adams Withdraws From NYC Race

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2025

Mayor

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) / Photo by Marc A. Hermann, MTA via Flickr

The inevitable happened in the New York City Mayor’s race this week when the incumbent, Eric Adams, officially ended his campaign. How his withdrawal affects the race’s final month remains to be seen.

Languishing in all polling, enduring a federal indictment process from which President Trump pardoned him, unable to qualify for matching funds, and experiencing a tumultuous four years in office made the Mayor unelectable. In fact, his Democratic primary prospects were so poor that he exited the nomination race in April to run as an Independent.

Even with such a move he was unable to exceed 13 percent of the general election vote in any poll and shrunk to single digit support in the six most recent publicly released research studies from Sept. 8-22.

The New York City Mayor’s race has gained a great deal of national attention largely because the leading candidate and Democratic nominee, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria), is an avowed socialist who advocates radical ideas. He plans to create government-run grocery stores, adopt extreme rent control policies in what he says will “make New York City affordable,” and severely downsize the police force.

As we know, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary along with 10 others, posting 44 percent of the vote in the first round of voting. Under the city’s Ranked Choice Voting system, Mamdani exceeded the 50 percent mark in the third round, topping Cuomo 56-44 percent. The Ranked Choice system will not be used in the general election, meaning the winner can claim the office with only plurality support.

Winning with less than a majority appears to be on the horizon for Mamdani or any other potential winner. Despite his loss in the Democratic primary, Cuomo remains in the race as an Independent, or ostensibly the nominee of the Fight and Deliver Party.

The Republican nominee is perennial mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa who founded the Guardian Angels crime prevention organization in 1977 then known as the “Magnificent 13.” The unofficial citizens’ organization originally stood against violence on the New York City subway system and later expanded to citywide crime coverage. Always controversial, Sliwa summarily hosted a New York City radio show. Two other minor party candidates are also on the ballot.

The prevailing electoral analysis suggests a Mamdani plurality win, meaning the majority of voters would have chosen another candidate. Therefore, much pressure was put upon Mayor Adams to drop out since there appeared no scenario that would lead him to victory.

Now that Adams has withdrawn, that same pressure will now turn toward Sliwa, who has only performed slightly better in polling. With only an 11 percent Republican partisan registration within New York City, a Sliwa victory is highly improbable.

Seeing both Adams and Sliwa depart would create a virtual one-on-one scenario between Mamdani and Cuomo, which appears as the only scenario where the Democratic nominee could be defeated.

Yet, in prospective ballot tests without Adams, we see little movement. Earlier Mamdani-Cuomo-Sliwa polling was showing virtually no change in the size of the Democrat’s lead. In the six polls conducted from Sept. 8 to now, Mamdani averaged a consistent 44.3 percent, posting support figures of 45 percent in four of the surveys and 43 percent in the remaining two.

For his part, Cuomo averaged 25.8 percent in the six polls, almost 20 points behind the leader. Sliwa didn’t do much better than Mayor Adams. In the same half-dozen ballot test surveys, the Sliwa average was 12.8 percent, only slightly above the city Republican registration figure.

The campaign’s final month will be the determining factor, understanding that Cuomo has a great deal of ground to close. Sliwa staying in the race, as he continues to promise, suggests a Cuomo victory path becomes even smaller and allows Mamdani greater campaign latitude.

It will be interesting to see how the race concludes. Mamdani continues to enjoy momentum moving toward the general election, even in the face of what could mean a mass exodus of NYC businesses. The prevailing business community analysis believes large numbers of owners will depart because they will not be able to make a sustainable profit under new Mamdani Administration ordinances that the city may adopt.

Should we see negative economic or public safety ramifications occur once Mamdani wins the mayor’s election, expect the New York example to then be used against Democrats in many 2026 congressional and gubernatorial campaigns. At this point, even with Mayor Adams leaving the race, it appears the general election is still Mamdani’s to lose.

Grijalva Wins in Arizona;
Cuomo Announces as an Independent

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, July 17, 2025

AZ-7

Adelita Grijalva / Photo by Kelly Presnell

Former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva and daughter of the late Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson), won Tuesday night’s special Democratic primary, easily defeating media influencer Deja Foxx and former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez. Grijalva’s victory is the first step toward replacing her late father in Congress. The 11-term Representative passed away in March.

Grijalva will now face painting contractor Daniel Butierrez, who won the Republican nomination as he did for the 2024 election. In last November’s result, Butierrez fell to Rep. Grijalva, 63-37 percent, and spent just over $76,000 on his campaign.

The 7th District of Arizona is strongly Democratic (Dave’s Redistricting App partisan lean: 65.5D – 32.3R), so Grijalva is now the prohibitive favorite to win the special general election on Sept. 23. At that point, she would be sworn into the House to complete the balance of the current term.

The Grand Canyon State’s vacant 7th District is anchored in Arizona’s second largest city, Tucson, and contains all of Santa Cruz County and parts of four other counties including Pima. The district’s voting age population is heavily Hispanic, 55.4 percent, as compared to 32.9 percent White.

The 7th is Arizona’s heaviest Hispanic district and stretches from just west of New Mexico all the way to the California border. In 2024, former Vice President Kamala Harris defeated President Trump here, 60.5 – 38.4 percent.

The Arizona vote was the first in a series of special elections. On July 20, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) will resign from the House. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) will then have 10 days to set the special election calendar for the state’s 7th District (Dave’s Redistricting App partisan lean: 55.1R – 42.1D). At this preliminary point, we already see eight Republicans and four Democrats already declaring their candidacies.

On Sept. 9, Virginia’s 11th District (Dave’s Redistricting App partisan lean: 67.2D – 30.7R) voters will choose a replacement for the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax). The party nominees are Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw for the Democrats and Republican former FBI agent Stewart Whitson.

The TX-18 seat (Dave’s Redistricting App partisan lean: 73.6D – 24.4R) will then hold its special jungle preliminary election to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) concurrently with the Texas municipal calendar on Nov. 4. The crowded open contest will most likely produce two runoff participants. Such will occur if no candidate receives majority support, which is the most probable result. If so, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) will then schedule a special general election in order to fill the district’s vacant congressional seat.

New York City

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost the New York City Democratic mayoral primary earlier this year, formally announced that he will return for the general election on the Independent ballot line. He joins the city’s incumbent Mayor, Eric Adams, as Independents. Controversial state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-New York City) won the open partisan primary election on June 24.

With a split field that also includes Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, the most likely result is Mamdani winning a plurality victory in this most Democratic of municipalities. Though the Ranked Choice Voting process was used in the primary election, it is not a factor in the November general election.

New York City Mayoral Results;
Major Texas Action

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, June 25, 2025

New York City

Campaign posters for Zohran Mamdani pasted on a wall in New York City. / Photo by EdenPictures

After leading in polling for most of the race until falling behind just days before the election, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded yesterday’s Democratic mayoral primary to state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani even though the Ranked Choice Voting rounds have not yet begun.

Still, with more than a 90,000-vote lead with well over 90 percent of the precincts reporting, and a joint campaign from opponents to dissuade voters from ranking Cuomo in the later rounds, it is clear that the Assemblyman, who ran as a Democratic Socialist, will win the party nomination.

Cuomo did not, however, rule out advancing into the general election potentially as an Independent or the nominee of a minor party. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is already in the general election running as an Independent. With New York City Democrats holding a 65-24 percent registration advantage over Independents and minor party registrants – Republicans are only at 11 percent – it is clear that Mamdani will be very difficult to overtake in the November election.

Assemblyman Mamdani pledged to make bus fares free, community college tuition-free, provide child care for children five years of age and under, freeze rents on municipal housing, and have the city operate grocery stores to drive down prices, among other things. His platform appealed to the far left and to young people who would directly benefit from his proposals; most, however, don’t believe implementing all of these proposals will be fiscally or practically possible.

Assemblyman Mamdani’s biggest negative for the general election, in a city with more than 1 million Jewish residents, is his refusal to condemn the extreme anti-Israel demands of protestors and pro-Palestine activists; he went so far as to “appear to defend the slogan globalize the intifada.”

It remains to be seen how active the opposition general election campaigns will be, or if a coalition candidate will emerge, but last night was a clear victory for Mamdani who is certainly the early favorite to win the general election.

Texas

In the past few days, the state of Texas has come roaring to the political news forefront. Perhaps the most significant story is Gov. Greg Abbott (R) calling a state legislative special session that will likely lead to a re-drawing of the Texas congressional map. While the Governor has not yet added redistricting to the special session agenda, reports suggest he will do so imminently.

Because the state has grown by more that 2.1 million people since the 2020 census was released, translating into a 7.3 percent growth rate, the mid-decade estimates suggest that the state’s current 38 districts are already significantly imbalanced from an equivalent population perspective. To put the Texas growth figure into context, the national rate of population increase during the same period is 2.6 percent.

Democrats now have a Lone Star State US Senate candidate. Retired astronaut Terry Virts announced his candidacy this week with attacks directed more toward GOP challenger and Attorney General Ken Paxton rather than incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R). For his part, Sen. Cornyn who has been trailing Paxton in every early Republican primary poll, for the first time indicated he might step aside if he could be assured that another Republican contender could deny Paxton the nomination.

In addition to Virts, former Congressmen Colin Allred, the 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, Beto O’Rourke, the party’s 2018 Senate and 2022 gubernatorial nominee, and state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) are also confirming having interest in entering the Senate race.

In the South Texas 28th Congressional District that veteran Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) represents, a budding Republican primary is also developing.

Webb County Judge (Executive) Tano Tijerina (R) announced that he is forming a congressional exploratory committee to assess his chances of winning both the Republican primary and a general election against veteran Rep. Cuellar.

Webb County, which houses the city of Laredo, is the largest population entity in the 28th CD just slightly ahead of the Bexar County (San Antonio) portion. Already in the Republican primary is former Congresswoman Mayra Flores who is moving into this district from the 34th CD (Brownsville) where she was elected in a special election but defeated in two subsequent campaigns after more Democratic boundaries were enacted in the 2021 redistricting plan.

Clearly, the 28th will feature both a competitive Republican primary on March 3 and a hotly contested general election. In November, Rep. Cuellar, despite being under federal indictment, defeated retired Navy officer Jay Furman (R) 53-47 percent, while President Trump was carrying the CD over Kamala Harris with a 53-46 percent margin. It remains to be seen how this district will be adjusted in the coming redistricting effort.

To the west of the Cuellar district, wealthy conservative Texas rancher Susan Storey Rubio announced late last week that she will challenge three-term Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) in the sprawling 23rd Congressional District that stretches from San Antonio all the way to El Paso. Considering Rubio’s ability to self-fund and already casting Rep. Gonzales as a “spineless moderate” suggests that this may be a March primary challenge that could draw significant political attention.

“Approval Voting:”
A Better Alternative

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Feb. 10, 2025

Mayor

Alderwoman Cara Spencer / Photo by Paul Sableman

Last week, the city of St. Louis held municipal elections under a new voting system. In 2021, they elected their mayor using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) as an alternative to a plurality system with a runoff. For the 2025 elections, the election officials are experimenting again, this time with an alternative that appears fairer.

Obviously not satisfied with RCV, the city election officials chose the “Approval Voting” method. Under this system, people have as many votes to disperse as there are contenders.

In the St. Louis mayoral Democratic primary four candidates were on the ballot. Each voter could disperse four votes within the field, but without assigning multiple votes to any one candidate. Therefore, if strongly in favor of a particular candidate, the individual voter may issue one of his or her votes toward that contender and then not vote for any of the others. Doing so would have the force of giving the voter’s favored candidate three extra votes.

The Gateway City mayoral primary was held Tuesday, and the approval results found Mayor Tishaura Jones’ (D) re-election bid in serious trouble.

In the initial vote, Cara Spencer, a member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen and Jones’ 2021 opponent, crushed the incumbent 68-33 percent.

The other two candidates, the city’s Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler and businessman Andrew Jones received 25 and 14 percent of the approval vote universe, which led to a cumulative total percentage of 140 percent. The high aggregate number shows that many voters were dispersing multiple votes throughout the candidate field.

Spencer and Mayor Jones will now advance into the April 8 general municipal election. In that vote, the electorate will return to casting their ballots in a traditional way: voting once for one candidate.

The Approval Voting method appears as a more equitable way of dispersing votes if the goal is to eliminate plurality victories. The major flaw in RCV is that some individuals cast votes in multiple rounds while others are limited to their initial vote.

Under RCV, the ballot caster would rank his or her preferences among the listed candidates. In the St. Louis Mayor’s example, an RCV system would have ordered the candidates with their first choice as “Ranked 1,” second choice “Ranked 2,” etc.

When all ballots are cast, the votes are then counted. If no contender receives majority support, the last place candidate is eliminated, and the election officials must find all of the ballots that ranked the last place finisher as the first choice. At that point, those voters who ranked the last place finisher first are isolated and just their second choices are added to the aggregate count. This process continues until one candidate finally reaches the 50 percent plateau through the benefit of extra voting.

The flaw in RCV is that it creates uneven planes and allows the extremist voters – those who vote for the least popular candidates and are often the most unrelenting voters on either side of the ideological spectrum – to provide the victory margin for a particular candidate.

While the RCV proponents say their system elects the candidate with the broadest support base, in reality it has proven to generally elect someone who commands lesser initial backing.

The Approval Voting method appears to correct the RCV flaw in that it would return all voters to equal standing. Therefore, eliminating plurality finishes with the Approval Voting method seems to accomplish the goal of creating a majority and where the candidate attracting the most actual votes, wins.

Trump on Ballot in Minnesota; Incumbent Challenged in AR-3; Virginia Final Numbers; Houston Mayoral Runoff Set

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Nov. 10, 2023

President

Former President Donald Trump / Photo by Gage Skidmore

Minnesota: State Supreme Court OKs Trump for Primary Ballot — Ruling on a 14th Amendment lawsuit attempting to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot saying he incited an “insurrection” even though he or no January 6-convicted defendant was even charged with insurrection against the Constitution; therefor, the Minnesota State Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that he will be placed on the Republican primary ballot. The high court left open the possibility to hear, however, another lawsuit for the general election should Trump win the Republican presidential nomination.

Similar lawsuits are also alive in Colorado and Michigan.

In dismissing the challenge, Minnesota Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that the Republican primary is, “an internal party election to serve internal party purposes … [and] there is no statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office.”

The plaintiffs indicated they are “disappointed” with the ruling but underscored that the state Supreme Court has left the door open for a perhaps different ruling later in the cycle relating to the general election.

House

AR-3: Rep. Womack to Face GOP Primary Challenge — Yesterday, Arkansas state Sen. Clint Penzo (R-Springdale) announced that he will challenge seven-term Congressman Steve Womack (R-Rogers). During his tenure in the House, Womack served briefly as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Immediately, in a show of support, Sen. Tom Cotton (R), Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), and US Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Jonesboro) announced their endorsements of the incumbent. It remains to be seen if this challenge becomes a serious effort. The Arkansas primary is scheduled for Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

States

Virginia: Numbers Becoming Final — The final votes are being reported in the Virginia legislative elections, and the party division numbers look to be 21-19 in the Democrats’ favor for the incoming state Senate, and a 51-49 Democratic majority in the House of Delegates. The final numbers are slightly better for Republicans, but Democrats now control both houses in the General Assembly instead of just one.

Cities

Houston: Mayoral Runoff Set, Outgoing Mayor Endorses — Gov. Greg Abbott (R) confirmed that the Houston mayoral runoff election will be held on Dec. 9. The runoff winner will earn a four-year term as America’s fourth largest city’s chief executive. Immediately after the election, outgoing Mayor Sylvester Turner (D), ineligible to seek a third term, endorsed US Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston). She placed second to state Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) in Tuesday’s initial election. Neither candidate received majority support to secure the election, hence the need for a head-to-head second vote.