| STATE OF THE RACE: Lean Vo (Democratic Hold)
Candidate Page: Hubert Vo
Candidate Page: Greg Myers House District Map: District 149
District History: 2006 Election Results Click here to return to the Burnt Orange Political Report home page. 30-Day Out Campaign Finance Report: HD-149: Vo vs. Myers
| Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on Hand | Democrat Hubert Vo
| $97,620.51 | $59,240.04 | $54,233.08 | Republican Greg Myers
| $105,756.57 | $72,739.38 | $14,276.07 | | Vo/Myers Advantage (Noted) | $8,136.06 (Myers)
| $13,499.34 (Myers)
| $39,957.01 (Vo)
|
There's really only three points that need to be made about this race: - Rep. Hubert Vo twice beat an incumbent Chair of House Appropriations. This was a Vietnamese man beating the King of the Castle in a conservative-leaning district. Twice. Clearly, he's got great district-level organizatoin.
- The only reason this race is even close is because of the charges of apartment neglect that Myers and the Chronicle blew up about. Never mind the facts of the case -- or that Vo addressed the problems immediately. The chattering class is dead set on believing this is a bigger story than it really is.
- Myers' only hope is to keep Democrats home; no part of his campaign strategy is based on turning out Republicans. In a year with an historical Harris County Coordinated campaign efforts and with Obama atop the ticket, that's not a winning strategy.
Update: The Houston Chronicle endorsed Vo, saying: After becoming the first Vietnamese-American to serve in the state Legislature, this incumbent Democrat has been a champion for fully funding CHIP and reclaiming millions of federal matching funds for the program. Revelations of Vo's failure to maintain rundown apartment complexes he owned in Houston have been a stain on his reputation. To his credit, he did react to the revelations by quickly performing city-mandated repairs. The Chronicle believes Vo has learned his lesson and deserves to continue representing his constituents.
Now -- those strong points aside -- we could only classify this race as "Lean Democrat" because it is impossible to gauge how much the apartment accusations are going to have legs until we see where some of the early voting totals come in and/or until we get some good poll numbers on the district. Here are some other links that previous coverage of the race on Burnt Orange Report: |
