Guest Op-ed By Durrell Douglas
If you had told me five years ago that on the same Tuesday in 2026, Letitia Plummer would beat a two-term former mayor of Houston to win the Democratic nomination for Harris County Judge. That Christian Menefee would defeat 21-year incumbent Al Green for the new 18th Congressional District. That Dexter McCoy would win the Democratic nomination for Fort Bend County Judge. That Jeff Boney would win the Democratic nomination for Fort Bend County Treasurer. That Darrell Jordan Jr. would win the Democratic nomination for Harris County District Clerk.
Five Black People expanding the boundaries of Black Political Power in Greater Houston. One nomination night.
I would have told you to go on somewhere with that. I would not have believed you so easily.
But the precincts told a different story Tuesday.
Cue Frankie Beverly’s “Before I Let Go.”
I spent the last two days inside the Canvas data. Annise Parker should have beaten Letitia Plummer, according to every poll and political analyst. Parker is a two-term former mayor with universal name recognition who led Plummer by 31,000 votes in the March primary. By every conventional measure, she was going to close on Tuesday.
She lost by 2,543 votes.
Here is how.
I separated the precincts into two buckets: One for the “new 18th Congressional District” and the other for the rest. In Harris County precincts where voters cast ballots in the Menefee-Green Congressional runoff, Plummer beat Parker by 8,620 votes. In Houston precincts where voters skipped the Congressional race, Parker beat Plummer by 6,077. Letitia Plummer is the Democratic nominee for Harris County Judge because Black Houston decided this race mattered.
Now look at the precincts that did the work.
In Precinct 140, 616 of us cast ballots in the Congressional race. We gave Plummer that same precinct, 408 to 202. In Precinct 318, 636 of us voted in the Congressional race. Plummer won 441 to 189. Precinct 235, 589 Congressional ballots, Plummer 436 to 148. Precinct 286, 587 Congressional ballots, Plummer 401 to 179. Precinct 271, 533 Congressional ballots, Plummer 389 to 139. Precinct 630, 479 Congressional ballots, Plummer 356 to 119.
Third Ward, Sunnyside, Acres Homes, South Park, Fifth Ward. Even in parts of the county no longer part of the Congressional District, there was a spike in activity for this election. Look at any of those precincts on a map. Look at who lives there. Look at the candidates we just elected to the November ballot. Tell me Black Houston is not a force.
The story gets sharper when you compare March to May. In Precinct 209, Plummer pulled 52% of the Plummer-Parker vote in the March primary. In May, she pulled 77%. A 25- point jump in one precinct. In Precinct 295, 61% to 78%. In Precinct 585, 59% to 75%. In Precinct 630, 61% to 75%.
That swing did not come from Parker voters changing their minds. It came from voters who sat out the March primary and showed up for the May runoff. The kind of voters every consultant memo writes off as low-propensity. The kind of voters who put Letitia Plummer on the November ballot.
We have done this before.
In 2018, a 27-year-old immigrant named Lina Hidalgo unseated a ten-year Republican County Judge. The same night, seventeen Black women were sworn in as judges across Harris County. We called it the Black Girl Magic election, and it became the loudest political moment this generation has lived through. Beto O’Rourke at the top of the ticket gave us the reason. We did the rest.
Four years later, with no Beto and no national moment to anchor it, Lina Hidalgo barely held her seat. She survived a county of four million people by fewer than 16,000 votes. Same precincts. Same neighborhoods. Different turnout.
That is the pattern. Black Houston is not low-turnout. We are high-leverage. We do not show up by habit. We show up when the candidate is named, the stakes are clear, and somebody walks our streets like our vote actually matters.
Tuesday gave us five candidates worth showing up for among many others who could benefit from this power base.
The corridor runs from the Third Ward through Missouri City all the way to Sugar Land. The Houston we grew up in stopped at 610. The Houston we are building right now does not. It runs to the Fort Bend County line and keeps going. The region is remaking itself, and the people leading the remake finally look like the region actually looks.
Charleen Jones is a Harris County Democratic Party precinct chair for 0136 in historic Riverside Terrace. Years ago, she also lived in Missouri City in Briargate, where she was a precinct captain. “I’ve been doing voter turnout since 1997 when Lee P. Brown ran for mayor.” She says she worked on his campaign and recognizes a common thread: “Black voters want candidates who speak directly to them.”
So the only question between now and November is whether we treat Tuesday like a finish line or a starting block. Letitia Plummer faces Orlando Sanchez. Dexter McCoy faces Daniel Wong. Jeff Boney faces Bill Rickert. Darrell Jordan faces Chris Daniel. Christian Menefee defends a district he already represents. The math is on our side when we show up.
The precincts already drew the map.
We just have to walk it.
In 2018, we made history. In 2026, we make it bigger.
Tell me again we’re not a force.
Durrell Douglas is Executive Director of Houston Justice and Founding Curator of TEDx Third Ward.