“Everything went exactly as we expected it to.”
State Sen. Molly Cook narrowly won the Democratic race for the Texas Senate District 15 seat against state Rep. Jarvis Johnson. Tuesday’s primary runoff for Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s former senate seat was a nail-biter, with Cook beating Johnson by 74 votes, according to results released by the Harris County Clerk’s Office.
Cook trailed Johnson by 364 votes before Election Day, based on early voting and ballot-by-mail tallies, but said she and her campaign remained confident during a race in which a total of nearly 18,800 votes were cast. Cook received 50.2% of the vote compared to 49.8% for Johnson, who has represented part of the district while serving since 2017 in the Texas House of Representatives.
“Everything went exactly as we expected it to,” Cook said Wednesday. “We worked really, really hard and we were confident in the turnout on Election Day.”
Johnson, who served on the Houston City Council before being elected to the Texas House, was not ready to concede defeat Wednesday because “the margin in this race is so small.” He also said he wanted to “ensure that each and every ballot is included in the final count,” since some mail-in ballots and provisional ballots can be tallied after Election Day.
“Our goal is not to further delay the official results. We are allowing the behind-the-scenes process to run its course,” Johnson said in a statement. “This exercise could move margins in our favor, or simply present an outcome that may not end favorably for us. We are in ongoing conversations with our legal team and political advisors.”
The Senate District 15 seat representing a portion of Houston was vacated for the first time since 1978 this year when Whitmire was elected as Houston’s mayor.
It was the second election win in a month for Cook, who beat Johnson by a much larger margin of 14 points in a May 4 special election to finish out Whitmire’s current term in the Texas Legislature. Tuesday’s primary was related to a full, four-year term that begins in 2025.
Cook, an emergency room nurse, activist and community organizer who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, must still face Republican Joseph L. Trahan, who ran unopposed in the primary, in the November general election. But the seat is considered safely Democratic.
Cook entered the political arena in 2022, when she challenged Whitmire in the Democratic primary and received about 42% of the vote. Her come-from-behind win Tuesday was an extension of that campaign, she said.
It also came on a day when many Houston-area residents lost electricity during a deadly afternoon storm that resulted in temporary power outages at more than a dozen voting locations. After winning, Cook said she was focused on responding to “the constituents who have again lost power or are still out of power and have needs on the ground.”
“You know, it was another Houston day with a surprising turn of events with the weather,” Cook said. “But we’ve done work over the last two-and-a-half years running for this seat. It culminates on Election Day, but there was quite a bit of foundation and bedrock we were operating from. And we did see pop in the afternoon. People turned out after the storm. There is so much hope and determination in our district and in Harris County, voters found a way to make their voices heard.”