HOUSTON — Democrat Christian Menefee won a Texas U.S. House seat in a Saturday special election that will further narrow Republicans’ slim majority.
Menefee, the Harris County attorney, prevailed in a runoff against fellow Democrat Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member. He will replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, who died in March 2025.
The seat representing the heavily Democratic Houston-based district has been vacant for nearly a year.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t schedule the first round of voting until November. Menefee and Edwards were the top vote-getters in a 16-candidate, all-parties primary. They advanced to a runoff because no candidate won a majority of the vote.
Abbott argued that Houston officials needed the six months between Turner’s death and the first round of voting to prepare for the special election, but Democrats criticized the long wait as a move designed to give the GOP a slightly bigger cushion in the House for difficult votes. The 18th District is safely Democratic with minority residents making up most of the voters.
Menefee, 37, was endorsed by several prominent Texas Democrats including former presidential candidate and congressman Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Jasmine Crockett. He was joined Saturday by Crockett, who is running for the U.S. Senate.
“I”m looking to bring a fight to Washington, D.C., and I need your help to do it,” he said as he stood beside Crockett in a social media video.
Menefee ousted an incumbent in 2020 to become Harris County’s first Black county attorney, representing it in civil cases, and he has joined legal challenges of President Trump’s executive orders on immigration.
Edwards served four years on the Houston City Council starting in 2016. She ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 but finished fifth in a 12-person primary. She unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the 2024 primary, and when Lee died that July, local Democrats narrowly nominated Turner over Edwards as Lee’s replacement.
Menefee finished ahead of Edwards in the primary, but Edwards picked up the endorsement of the third-place finisher, state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who said Edwards had skills “best suited to go against Trump.”
After Saturday, yet another election lies ahead in little over a month. Menefee and Edwards are on the ballot again on March 3, when they will face Democratic Rep. Al Green in another election — this one a Democratic primary in a newly drawn 18th Congressional District, for the full term that starts in 2027.
GOP lawmakers who control Texas state government drew a new map last summer for this year’s midterms, pushed by Trump to create five more winnable seats for Republicans to help preserve their majority.
Winter weather added to voters’ confusion, forcing local officials to cancel two days of advance voting this week, prompting civil rights group to go to court to win a two-day extension, into Thursday.
Hanna writes for the Associated Press.
The post Democrat Christian Menefee wins special election for Texas U.S. House seat, narrowing GOP’s slim majority appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
