Houston residents in the 18th Congressional District are closer to having new representation in Washington.
Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards are headed to a runoff for the seat, which has been vacant since the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner in March. Menefee and Edwards were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s election, according to results released by the Harris County Clerk’s Office.
Menefee received 28.9% of the vote in the 16-candidate race, with Edwards running second with 25.6%. State Rep. Jolanda Jones, a fellow Democrat, placed third with 19.1%.
A runoff date has yet to be scheduled, but it will likely take place sometime in late January or February, under a federal law to accommodate serving military personnel and other citizens living overseas.
Speaking at an election watch party Tuesday night, Menefee said he thanked his staff for their hard work during the campaign.
“I’m running for Congress, not for Christian Menefee,” he said. “I’m running for Congress because I deeply care about those communities and I want to get to work for them in Washington every single day.”
Edwards, speaking at her election watch party, said her campaign was a collective effort.
“Each and every single time that we talk about this mission or goal, it’s never been just to get me elected,” she said. “It has always been about making sure that we create an 18th Congressional District where each and every single person, no matter what their background, no matter where they live, has the opportunity not just to get by day to day but … to truly have people thrive each and every single day.”
The 18th Congressional District has remained vacant for much of the past 16 months. Longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died in July 2024 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Gov. Greg Abbott called a special election to finish her term in November 2024, on the same ballot as which voters were to pick her successor for a full term. Jackson Lee’s daughter won the special election, while the former Houston mayor Turner won the general election contest.
Turner died in March 2025 after barely two months in office. Abbott then waited a month before announcing in April that the special election to fill Turner’s seat would not come until this November. Abbott cited Harris County’s previous difficulties conducting elections as the reason for the lengthy delay. Democratic critics accused Abbott of holding the seat open, and leaving district residents without a voice in Congress, in order to preserve Republicans’ thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In July, Abbott directed state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, largely under pressure from President Donald Trump, who said he wanted Texas Republicans to flip five Democratic seats to GOP control. Texas’ 18th Congressional District stood at the heart of the fight, after the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alleged in a letter to Abbott that the district, drawn to represent a majority coalition of nonwhite voters, was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
The Texas Legislature took two special sessions to accomplish that goal, succeeding only after Democratic representatives fled the state for weeks, denying Republicans a quorum and pushing the issue of redistricting into the national spotlight. A slew of other states, led by both Democrats and Republicans, subsequently moved to redraw their legislative boundaries as part of the effort to decide control of Congress.
Immediately after the Texas Legislature passed its redistricting plan, a coalition of civil rights groups challenged the plan in court.
A federal district court in El Paso will determine whether the existing congressional map or the new one will be used for the 2026 midterm elections.
Houston Public Media’s Michael Adkison and Natalie Weber contributed to this story.
