{"id":64855,"date":"2025-11-25T20:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/64855\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T20:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:50:12","slug":"edwards-menefee-make-their-cases-to-houstons-18th-congressional-district-voters-ahead-of-runoff-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/64855\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwards, Menefee make their cases to Houston\u2019s 18th Congressional District voters ahead of runoff \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Edwards<\/p>\n

Provided<\/p>\n

Early voting in the runoff for the special election in Houston’s 18th Congressional District will run from Jan. 21-27, with Election Day set for Saturday, January 31<\/a>. The final contenders are acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, both Democrats.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

The 18th Congressional District has long been a Democratic stronghold, but the runoff comes amid uncertainty over which congressional map Texas will use<\/a> for the primaries in March.<\/p>\n

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules Texas must use the state’s 2021 congressional map, based on the 2020 census, the winner of the runoff is all but assured of winning the March 2026 Democratic primary and the midterm general election that follows next November.<\/p>\n

Click here for more inDepth features.<\/a><\/p>\n

But if the high court rules that the mid-decade redistricting map<\/a> passed two months ago by Texas lawmakers must take effect next year, the winner of the runoff is likely to face a primary challenge from Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Green<\/a> \u2013 who has represented the 9th Congressional District for more than 20 years, but whose home Republican lawmakers redrew into the 18th. Most political analysts view Green as the heavy favorite in any such primary.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Houston voters will soon decide whether Edwards or Menefee should complete the unfinished term of late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, whose March death<\/a> has left the 18th Congressional District without representation in Washington for more than eight months. <\/p>\n

Amanda Edwards<\/p>\n

Edwards is making her third run for Texas’ 18th Congressional District. She ran in the 2024 Democratic primary against incumbent U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee<\/a> \u2013 and lost. When Jackson Lee died that summer, Edwards ran in a vote among Democratic precinct chairs to replace Jackson Lee on the general election ballot \u2013 and lost to former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.<\/p>\n

Then Turner died in March of this year, after barely two months in office.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 4, in the special election to fill out Turner\u2019s term, Edwards finished a close second behind Menefee<\/a> in a 16-candidate race, qualifying for the runoff.<\/p>\n

“The people who are supporting me,” Edwards said, “they see me as the people\u2019s candidate. I\u2019m the person that has been consistently in the community delivering the results.”<\/p>\n

\"Amanda<\/p>\n

Andrew Schneider\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards<\/p>\n

Edwards contends that, as both a former intern to Jackson Lee and as a former Houston City Council member, she is in a better position to function as a congresswoman on day one.<\/p>\n

“You\u2019ve got to be someone who can be clever about how to maneuver in difficult-to-maneuver environments. You\u2019ve got to be somebody also who knows how to bring home the bacon. That\u2019s a huge part of your congressional role, and I\u2019m the only one in this race that has ever walked and worked in the 18th Congressional District office,” Edwards said.<\/p>\n

For Edwards, the top issue has long been access to affordable health care.<\/p>\n

“We have now gone through a record-breaking government shutdown where a lot has been sacrificed,” Edwards said. “A lot of changes and challenges have been presented as a result of it, but now we\u2019re walking away from this situation without the affordable access to healthcare, and that\u2019s what people want.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: With ACA tax credits set to expire, Houston family faces skyrocketing insurance costs<\/a><\/p>\n

For Edwards, the issue of making sure her constituents have health care they can afford is intensely personal. Her father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma when she was 10 years old and died when she was a teenager.<\/p>\n

“Back then, I remember asking my dad questions like, well, what would happen if the insurance, what if they said no, because I\u2019m learning about all this stuff as a young teen, and I remember my dad just saying to me, well, we just have to figure something else out,” Edwards said. “I knew then, just like I know right now, that that actually was the wrong answer, and the right answer should have been that we had systems in place that help save lives and help provide access and help provide and keep families together.”<\/p>\n

Apart from health care, Edwards said her focus is on kitchen-table issues \u2013 fighting economic instability, increasing job security, and improving affordability.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve got to be focused on those economic opportunities that we can provide instead of take away,” Edwards said. “And that\u2019s going to be critical. Keeping costs low or making sure that they\u2019re lowered and it\u2019s affordable for people to live every day.”<\/p>\n

Christian Menefee <\/p>\n

On that front, there’s little daylight between Edwards and her opponent Menefee. He, too, is arguing for making life more affordable for working families, among other ways by raising the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

“There used to be a time in this country where you could work 40 hours a week. You could get the house, the two cars, send your kids off to do better than you did, and retire at a reasonable age,” Menefee said. “But now, so many people in our communities are working multiple jobs. They don\u2019t have savings. If something happens on the health care front, it could set them back financially decades.”<\/p>\n

Menefee, too, pointed to his early life experiences as formative to his priorities.<\/p>\n

“When I was growing up, there were many nights I would not have eaten were it not for the WIC program,” Menefee said of the USDA\u2019s supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children. “I would have never graduated college without a Pell Grant. I would have never went to law school without my dad\u2019s post-9\/11 GI Bill. And my brother almost certainly would have died from cancer, were it not for my parents’ military health benefits that fully funded his bone marrow transplant at MD Anderson.”<\/p>\n

\"Christian<\/p>\n

Andrew Schneider\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee<\/p>\n

That last point is one of the reasons Menefee also names affordable health care as his top priority.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m the only candidate in this race,” Menefee said, “who\u2019s come out for Medicare for All, because I believe that no family in this country should have to choose between putting food on the table and ensuring that they\u2019re able to get lifesaving treatment.”<\/p>\n

Unlike Edwards, Menefee comes to the contest with no legislative experience. What he does have is more than four years’ experience as elected Harris County attorney. He officially resigned from the office, as required by state law, when he declared himself a candidate for Congress, but has continued to serve in that role as county commissioners have yet to replace him.<\/p>\n

Menefee stresses that, in that role, he has repeatedly fought President Donald Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton in court and won. He pointed specifically to cases he won ensuring the county would retain millions of dollars for local health care programs<\/a> and blocking state the licensing of concrete batch plants.<\/p>\n

“People want fighters,” Menefee said. “And they don\u2019t want lip service. They don\u2019t want people who are fighting just so they can win an election. They want people who have a track record of fighting and delivering results, and I\u2019m the only candidate in this race who has that.”<\/p>\n

The potential Al Green challenge <\/p>\n

Turner was 70 years old when he died last March. Jackson Lee was 74 when she died in July 2024. By contrast, Menefee is 37, and Edwards is 43. So much of the focus of the special election has been on a moment of generational change for the 18th Congressional District.<\/p>\n

But it’s no longer clear that moment has arrived \u2014 not since Green threw his hat in the ring for the March Democratic primary for the next full term, in the wake of Texas’ mid-decade congressional redistricting.<\/p>\n

“The lines were moved such that my home was no longer in the 9th Congressional District,\u201d Green said last week. \u201cI didn\u2019t move. The people that I\u2019ve been representing have not moved.”<\/p>\n

Green, who is 78, says he will wait until the U.S. Supreme Court decides a legal challenge to the redistricting map before making a final decision whether he’ll run in the 18th or his current 9th congressional district.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

Andrew Schneider\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-Houston) announced his run for Texas\u2019 18th Congressional District, November 7, 2025.<\/p>\n

Edwards says she’s concentrating on her current race. But that doesn’t mean she’s ignoring the potential threat from Green.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve had a situation where, if you do the math, from when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee got sick and passed away, Congressman Turner passing away, the delay in the special election, the delay in the runoff election, we\u2019re talking about a period of 18 months with no representation, no vote, no voice, nobody to advocate for federal funding for this region,” Edwards said. “It is time for us to pass this torch forward. I think, with this election, this special election runoff, this is the opportunity to do that.”<\/p>\n

Menefee said he’s cautiously optimistic that the courts will ultimately block the 2025 redistricting map. But he signaled that he, too, is willing to fight a contested primary if need be.<\/p>\n

“When I set out this process of seeking to serve people in Congress in the 18th, I didn\u2019t do it just to serve them for 10 months or 11 months,” Menefee said. “People want folks in this business who are going to be committed to serving them long term, and I\u2019m committed to doing that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Provided Early voting in the runoff for the special election in Houston’s 18th Congressional District will run from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7835,4952,21631,33786,288,405,56,58,57,13618,66,4491,223,287,7838,27,7839,2279],"class_list":{"0":"post-64855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-amanda-edwards","9":"tag-christian-menefee","10":"tag-congressman-al-green","11":"tag-election-runoff","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-harris-county","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-houston-headlines","16":"tag-houston-news","17":"tag-indepth","18":"tag-local","19":"tag-national","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-special-election","23":"tag-texas","24":"tag-texas-18th-congressional-district","25":"tag-voting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}