Democrat Christian Menefee gained a Texas U.S. Home seat in a particular election Saturday that can slender Republicans’ already-slim majority, telling President Trump that the Democratic district “topples corrupt presidencies.”
Menefee, the Harris County legal professional, prevailed in a runoff towards Amanda Edwards, a former Houston Metropolis Council member. He’ll change the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, who died in March 2025.
The seat representing the closely Democratic Houston-based district has been vacant for almost a yr.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott did not schedule the primary spherical of voting till November. Menefee and Edwards have been the highest vote-getters in a 16-candidate, all-parties main. They superior to a runoff as a result of no candidate gained a majority of the vote.
Harris County Lawyer Christian Menefee, a candidate for the open Home seat within the 18th congressional district, speaks to his supporters throughout an election evening watch social gathering in Houston, on Nov. 4, 2025.
Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle through Getty Photographs
Chatting with supporters at his victory social gathering, Menefee promised to battle for common medical health insurance, search to question Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and “tear ICE up from the roots.”
He additionally addressed Mr. Trump straight after noting that one of many district’s most storied representatives, Democrat Barbara Jordan, was an eloquent voice for President Richard Nixon’s impeachment forward of his 1974 resignation.
“The outcomes right here tonight are a mandate for me to work as arduous as I can to oppose your agenda, to battle again towards the place you take this nation and to research your crimes,” Menefee mentioned.
Menefee will fill the rest of Turner’s time period, which ends when a brand new Congress is sworn into workplace in January 2027.
After Saturday, yet one more election lies forward in little over a month. Each Menefee and Edwards are on the poll once more on March 3, when they may face Democratic Rep. Al Inexperienced in one other election — this one a Democratic main in a newly drawn 18th congressional district, for the complete time period that begins in 2027. Inexperienced presently represents the ninth congressional district.
GOP lawmakers who management Texas state authorities drew a brand new map final summer time for this yr’s midterms, pushed by Mr. Trump to create 5 extra winnable seats for Republicans to assist protect their majority.
Abbott had argued that Houston officers wanted the six months between Turner’s demise and the primary spherical of voting to arrange for the particular election, however Democrats criticized the lengthy wait as a transfer designed to offer the GOP a barely larger cushion within the Home for troublesome votes.
Whereas campaigning Saturday, Edwards, 44, referenced the lengthy emptiness in a video she posted to social media, saying voters have gone too lengthy and not using a voice in Washington. Later, she informed supporters at her watch social gathering that the race “by no means was about profitable a selected seat.”
“This journey has at all times been about making a group the place each single particular person in it, it doesn’t matter what their background, regardless of the place they have been from, regardless of the place they lived, would have the chance to thrive,” she mentioned. “Which means entry to well being care. Which means schooling. Which means economics.”
Menefee, 37, was endorsed by a number of distinguished Texas Democrats together with former congressman Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Jasmine Crockett. He was joined Saturday by Crockett, who’s working for the U.S. Senate.
Menefee ousted an incumbent in 2020 to change into Harris County’s first Black county legal professional, representing it in civil circumstances, and he has joined authorized challenges of Mr. Trump’s government orders on immigration.
Edwards served 4 years on the Houston Metropolis Council beginning in 2016. She ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 however completed fifth in a 12-person main. She unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee within the 2024 main, and when Lee died that July, native Democrats narrowly nominated Turner over Edwards as Lee’s substitute.
Menefee completed forward of Edwards within the main, however Edwards picked up the endorsement of the third-place finisher, state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who mentioned Edwards had abilities “greatest suited to go towards Trump.”
Winter climate added to voters’ confusion, forcing native officers to cancel two days of advance voting this week, prompting civil rights group to go to courtroom to win a two-day extension, into Thursday.