Democrat Christian Menefee gained a Texas U.S. Home seat in a particular election Saturday that may slender Republicans’ already-slim majority, telling President Donald Trump that the Democratic district “topples corrupt presidencies.”
Menefee, the Harris County lawyer, prevailed in a runoff towards Amanda Edwards, a former Houston Metropolis Council member. He’ll substitute the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, who died in March 2025.
The seat representing the closely Democratic Houston-based district has been vacant for almost a 12 months.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t schedule the primary spherical of voting till November. Menefee and Edwards have been the highest vote-getters in a 16-candidate, all-parties major. They superior to a runoff as a result of no candidate gained a majority of the vote.
Chatting with supporters at his victory occasion, Menefee promised to combat for common medical health insurance, search to question Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and “tear ICE up from the roots.”
He additionally addressed Trump immediately after noting that one of many district’s most storied representatives, Democrat Barbara Jordan, was an eloquent voice for President Richard Nixon’s impeachment forward of his 1974 resignation.
“The outcomes right here tonight are a mandate for me to work as laborious as I can to oppose your agenda, to combat again towards the place you’re taking this nation and to analyze your crimes,” Menefee mentioned.
Menefee will fill the rest of Turner’s time period, which ends when a brand new Congress is sworn in to workplace in January 2027.
Abbott had argued that Houston officers wanted the six months between Turner’s loss of life and the primary spherical of voting to organize for the particular election, however Democrats criticized the long wait as a transfer designed to present the GOP a barely greater cushion within the Home for troublesome votes.
Whereas campaigning Saturday, Edwards, 44, referenced the lengthy emptiness in a video she posted to social media, saying voters have gone too lengthy with out a voice in Washington. Later, she advised supporters at her watch occasion that the race “by no means was about successful a selected seat.”
“This journey has at all times been about making a neighborhood the place each single particular person in it, it doesn’t matter what their background, irrespective of the place they have been from, irrespective of the place they lived, would have the chance to thrive,” she mentioned. “Meaning entry to well being care. Meaning training. Meaning economics.”
Menefee, 37, was endorsed by a number of outstanding Texas Democrats together with former congressman Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Jasmine Crockett. He was joined Saturday by Crockett, who’s operating for the U.S. Senate.
Menefee ousted an incumbent in 2020 to change into Harris County’s first Black county lawyer, representing it in civil circumstances, and he has joined authorized challenges of President Donald Trump’s government orders on immigration.
Edwards served 4 years on the Houston Metropolis Council beginning in 2016. She ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 however completed fifth in a 12-person major. She unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee within the 2024 major, and when Lee died that July, native Democrats narrowly nominated Turner over Edwards as Lee’s substitute.
Menefee completed forward of Edwards within the major, however Edwards picked up the endorsement of the third-place finisher, state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who mentioned Edwards had expertise “greatest suited to go towards Trump.”
After Saturday, one more election lies forward in little over a month. Each Menefee and Edwards are on the poll once more on March 3, when they’ll face Democratic Rep. Al Inexperienced in one other election — this one a Democratic major in a newly drawn 18th congressional district, for the complete time period that begins in 2027.
GOP lawmakers who management Texas state authorities drew a new map final summer time for this 12 months’s midterms, pushed by Trump to create 5 extra winnable seats for Republicans to assist protect their majority.
Winter climate added to voters’ confusion, forcing native officers to cancel two days of advance voting this week, prompting civil rights group to go to court docket to win a two-day extension, into Thursday.
