From the Houston Landing:
By the end next month, residents of state Senate District 15 will have a senator not named John Whitmire for the first time in 40 years.
State Rep. Jarvis Johnson and emergency room nurse Molly Cook are the only two candidates contesting in the May 4 special election to complete the remaining nine months of Whitmire’s term that he vacated to be sworn in as Houston mayor at the start of the year.
The pair then will square off on May 28 in the Democratic primary runoff election that, in the deep blue district, effectively serves as the general election for a four-year term in the Texas Senate.
Neither candidate said they intend to cede any ground to their opponent in the special election, despite the far shorter term it guarantees the winner.
“If you put a gun to my head and said ‘now pick,’ I’ll pick the 28th, but I’m not trying to concede anything,” Johnson said. “I want both.”
Cook echoed the sentiment.
“Obviously, one (election) puts you in for four years, one puts you in for six months, but each time is an opportunity to engage, grow as a candidate, grow as an organizer and get people to buy into the vision for this district,” she said.
Early voting in the May 4 special election begins Monday.
Multiple elections in Senate District 15
Cook and Johnson bested a crowded field with four other Democrats in the primary on March 5, but neither came close to securing the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff. Johnson finished first in the field with 36.1 percent of the more than 49,000 votes cast, compared to Cook’s 20.6 percent.
“One way to think about the special election is a de facto survey,” said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University.
While a win on May 4 only awards the victor a brief term in the Senate, a win does send a signal to potential donors looking to back the eventual winner ahead of the May 28 runoff election.
Johnson, as the only elected official in the race, is running on a message of experience in the Texas Legislature.
As the state representative for House District 139 since winning a 2016 special election to fill the remainder of Sylvester Turner’s term, Johnson is aiming to succeed a Houston mayor for the second time in his career. His incumbency in the house district gave Johnson a powerful voting base that helped propel him to his first place finish in March, Jones said.
As the presumptive frontrunner, Johnson is doubling down on that strategy for the May elections, continuing to emphasize his years of public service in the legislature and as a member of Houston City Council before that.
“My strategy doesn’t change,” Johnson said. “I continue to stick to the issues, I continue to stick to what’s important to the voters and what’s important for them to hear from their potential senator.”
If elected to the Senate, Johnson said he intends to “continue the work I’ve already done” on such Democratic priorities as Medicaid expansion, protecting voting access and funding public education.
The candidates’ experience is at the center of the campaign. In a Wednesday debate between the pair, Johnson criticized Cook’s lack of experience in public office.
“The Senate is not a place to learn politics,” he said. “Experience as a nurse does not translate to being an experienced lawmaker to get the job done, to get bills passed.”
Who will replace Whitmire in the Texas Senate?
The two share similar priorities, including support of abortion rights, gun control and improving the state electrical grid.
They differ in their backgrounds. While Johnson says his years in the legislature will bring him success as a senator, Cook says her years of experience outside the Capitol will allow her to be just as effective.
Cook has never held elected office and does not enjoy the same name recognition in parts of the district. She recently has been targeting Johnson with political ads that claim he is not a consistent liberal vote in the legislature.
A nurse at a Houston hospital, Cook also is a prolific grass-roots organizer for local liberal causes. She most recently led last year’s Fair For Houston Proposition B campaign and was an organizer for the Stop TxDOT Interstate 45 campaign to block the highway’s planned widening.
