Republicans led in Harris County’s first election for Appraisal District Board with Kyle Scott (Place 2) and Ericka McCrutcheon (Place 3) both coming in first in their respective races and now heading into a runoff. In Place 1, Republican Bill Frazer came in behind former Houston ISD Trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels who just avoided a runoff with 50.35 percent of the vote.
Scott led his opponent 46 percent to 24 percent and McCrutcheon came in ahead at 41 percent to 21 percent.
All three candidates were endorsed by the Harris County Republican Party while the Republican Party of Texas endorsed Frazer and Scott but not McCrutcheon. Scott, who was most recently the Republican nominee for County Treasurer, also carried the endorsement of the Houston Chronicle.
The races for Place 2 and 3 are now headed into a June 15 runoff.
Meanwhile, in a special election to fulfill the remainder of Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s term as state senator, nurse and activist Molly Cook pulled off a win with a comfortable lead of 57 percent to 42 percent against State Rep. Jarvis Johnson (D-Houston). Cook will serve the remainder of the term through the end of the year and will be the first person to fill the seat since 1983.
However, both Cook and Johnson will also be on the ballot at the end of the month for the 2024 Democrat Primary runoff elections.
Cook challenged Whitmire for the seat in the 2022 Democrat Primary election, losing 58 percent to 41 percent. She has been a part of the Stop TxDOT I45 coalition as well as the Fair for Houston coalition, which advocated and passed Houston’s Proposition B in 2023 to force a change in the local metropolitan planning association—the Houston-Galveston Area Council.
Cook and Johnson now head to the May 28 primary runoff election.
