(The Center Square) – The race for Houston mayor is polling as a tight competition.
When the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs conducted a poll concerning Houston’s upcoming mayoral election, they discovered 34% of people intend to vote for State Sen. John Whitmire, while 32% for U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
The survey was fielded between July 12 and July 20 in English and Spanish. The representative survey population of 800 has a margin of error of +/- 3.5%, according to the report.
The results of the survey are presented in a series of two reports. The first report examines the favorability ratings for the mayoral candidates. The second report will focus on policy issues facing Houston.
While the survey found that most people intend to vote for Whitmire and Jackson Lee, it also found that 22% are undecided and 12% intend to vote for the 12 remaining candidates.
More than half of the voters did not know enough about six of the candidates to vote for them. Only 6% did not know enough about Jackson Lee to have an opinion, and 23% did not know Whitmire well enough to cast a vote, according to the report.
“In a mayoral runoff election between Whitmire and Jackson Lee, Whitmire’s vote intention is 51%, well ahead of Jackson Lee’s at 33%,” according to the report. “Forty-four percent of likely voters indicate they would never vote for Jackson Lee, compared to only 13% who say they would never vote for Whitmire.”
Forty-eight percent of likely voters hold an unfavorable opinion of Jackson Lee, while 16% hold an unfavorable opinion of Whitmire.
“If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote on November 7, a December runoff will be held between the top two finishers,” according to a July 25 news release.
