Early voting results indicate the Republican primary for Texas’ newly redrawn 9th Congressional District is likely headed for a runoff between former Harris County Judge candidate Alex Mealer and state Rep. Briscoe Cain.
Mealer received 37.1% of the early vote compared to 30.8% for Cain, according to initial results released Tuesday night. Election Day ballots in the Houston-area district, which includes both Harris and Liberty counties, were still being counted.
If no one receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters in the nine-candidate race will advance to a May 26 runoff.
Mealer led by 8 percentage points in polling in the weeks leading up to the election, likely buoyed by a late endorsement from President Donald Trump. But Cain’s endorsement from Gov. Greg Abbott and a slew of Texas lawmakers may have held her back from clinching the nomination outright on Tuesday.
Mark Jones, a political science professor with Rice University, says a runoff could essentially reset the race because the district has historically low voter turnout.
“You’re not talking about a large number of voters who you’d need to be targeting in May, in which case Mealer’s financial advantage would not be as relevant, because once you get down to the rarefied environment of a May runoff, especially in the low turnout district like District 9, you don’t need that much money to reach those small groups of voters,” Jones said.
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The runoff election is set to take place on May 26, with early voting running from May 18-22. Only voters who participated in the initial Republican primary, or did not vote at all in the primary, are eligible to vote in the runoff.
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In a crowded Republican primary, Mealer and Cain emerged as frontrunners more than a month ago in the race for the newly redrawn congressional district. Mealer previously ran as the GOP nominee against Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in 2022, while Cain has represented part of the 9th District as a member of the Texas House for nearly a decade.
Prior to last year’s controversial mid-decade redistricting led by Texas Republicans, the 9th had been a solidly Democratic district, covering southern Houston along with portions of Fort Bend and Brazoria counties.
When Republican state lawmakers redrew the maps last summer, they pushed U.S. Rep. Al Green, who has represented the 9th District for more than 20 years, into the 18th Congressional District. The 9th now combines much of the former 29th Congressional District — another heavily Democratic district, represented by U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia — with portions of the 36th Congressional District, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Babin.
Republicans hope this will create a more favorable outcome for their party in November. It’s now a more suburban district that includes all of Liberty County, which voted for Trump over Kamala Harris for president by a margin of 4-to-1.
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But it’s unlikely the district will be a lock for the GOP, according to Jones, who says there is still an opening for Democrats.
“Of all of the Houston-area districts, this is the only one that isn’t rock solid red or rock solid blue,” Jones said. “So all of the other Houston-area congressional districts are decided in the primary. This is the only Houston congressional district that is remotely in play in a November election. So this is a seat where the person, whoever wins it is going to not only have to navigate future primaries, but they’re also going to have to navigate future November elections, where, while this district leans Republican now, in a few years, it could start to become less pink and more purple.”
In the six-candidate Democratic primary, Leticia Gutierrez leads with 51.9% of the early vote compared to 17.4% for Earnest Clayton Jr. Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts, who abandoned his campaign for Senate in November to run for a seat in the House, had 15.1%, according to early voting results.
Jones says a runoff could be risky for Gutierrez, who led in polling leading up to the election.
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