When Texas Rep. Jolanda Jones fled the state to break quorum earlier this year, joining House Democrats who refused to vote on what they believed was a racially gerrymandered redistricting map, she lost valuable time needed to raise funds and campaign for the District 18 U.S. Congressional seat.
While Jones was in Chicago and other destinations she hasn’t disclosed, her major opponents — Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards — were pounding the pavement and stocking their war chests in preparation for the November 4 election.
Did the quorum break hurt Jones’ chances of making it to a Democratic runoff? With about a month before early voting begins to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, that remains to be seen. But Jones, a U.S. champion heptathlete who has been elected to public office 11 times, says she’d do it again.
“We were hopeful that I had enough name ID that a three-month head start for [my opponents] would not be fatal,” Jones said. “The [legislative session] ended on June 2. I spoke with my family, I spoke with my son, and I announced [my candidacy for District 18] on June 5.”
Jones was playing catch-up from the time she filed; Menefee and Edwards announced shortly after Turner’s death in March. Jones was called back to Austin when a special session began on July 21 and the fight between Republicans and Democrats over congressional redistricting began.
Menefee and Edwards testified at public hearings on redistricting; Jones served on the governor’s select committee that presided over the hearings.
And on August 3, Jones and at least 50 of her colleagues fled the state to avoid voting on the redistricting map proposed by GOP lawmakers at the direction of President Donald Trump in an effort to garner five Republican seats in the U.S. House. When Democrats returned to Austin about two weeks later and reluctantly voted on the new map, Jones stayed behind.
“Nobody was saying [the map] was racist,” Jones said. “I’m a lawyer. I know the law, and I just felt it was important to highlight that [it was racist]: one, because it was true, and two, because it was legally required to have those maps overturned as unconstitutional and illegal. The media ran with it, and I became the face of the quorum break.”
Menefee and Edwards are also lawyers, and both publicly denounced the redistricting process as racist. But because Texas and the rest of the country was closely following the quorum break, Jones got the edge on airtime. That reminded people that she was a fighter, Jones said, but it also confused some voters who thought she’d dropped out of the District 18 race.
“My team was concerned that I was being out-campaigned, and I think they had a right to be,” she said. “But for me, there was never a doubt that I had to pick my actual constituents, not constituents I hoped for.”
June numbers showed that Menefee led in fundraising, followed by Edwards, Zoe Cadore, Isaiah Martin, Jones, and Ebony Rain Eatmon. Cadore and Eatmon have since dropped out of the race, with Eatmon lending her endorsement to Menefee. Other former candidates in the CD 18 race, Robert Slater and James Joseph, dropped out after the congressional redistricting maps were approved and filed to run for the 29th District and the 142nd District, respectively.
A July poll conducted by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Government revealed that Menefee and Edwards each polled at 19 percent among likely voters in the 18th Congressional District. Jones and Republican candidate Carmen Maria Montiel tied for second place with 14 percent each.
On September 11, Jones released numbers from BluePrint Polling showing she’s leading the race with 25.3 percent, followed by Montiel with 18.9 percent, Menefee with 13.9 percent, Edwards with 9.7 percent, and Martin with 3.5 percent.
“No one will fight harder than I to stop Republicans from taking away our social security, our public schools, our health care, our constitutional rights, and more,” Jones said in a press release last week. “I’ve proven I can stand up to Donald Trump, [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott, the FBI, and the Texas Rangers. I am grateful that voters are seeing what it looks like when Democrats fight back.”
The following day, Menefee released data from Lake Research Polling showing he was tied for first place with Jones at 22 percent.
“This reinforces what multiple polls have consistently shown: Menefee remains a frontrunner in a competitive race that will be decided by which campaign can effectively reach voters in the compressed special election timeline,” Menefee’s camp said in a press release.
“Our polling has consistently shown us ahead throughout this race, and it confirms that voters want a proven fighter with the experience to deliver results from day one,” Menefee said in an emailed statement. “We know we have a winning message and incredible grassroots support across this district, along with endorsements from 17 different labor unions, along with groups like the Oak Forest Democrats, Greater Heights Democrats, Tejano Democrats, and the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus.”
According to a phrase popularized by American writer Mark Twain, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” So how does one make sense of the conflicting numbers?
Jones said that when it comes to the District 18 race, the timing of the polls matters. Some of the data was gathered before she even entered the race. Some people were surveyed while Jones was breaking quorum and voters weren’t sure whether she’d abandoned the campaign, she said.
Polls aren’t cheap, Jones explained, adding that some cost up to $40,000, and candidates occasionally don’t release the data if it’s not favorable to them.
“We all have top-notch pollsters,” Jones said. “I believe [the other polls] are accurate but they’re not all fresh. Some of the other ones were done three weeks before mine.”
Nancy Sims, a University of Houston political science lecturer who hosted a CD 18 candidates forum earlier this month that Jones did not attend, said the polls are helpful in determining how to run a race, but it ultimately comes down to what the voters decide on Election Day. And the voters of Congressional District 18 will have been without representation for almost a year by the time a candidate is sworn into office.
“They each have a poll out showing that they’re No. 1,” Sims said of the top three candidates. She said she can’t predict who will win, especially since Jones is just now engaging on the campaign trail.
“It’s hard to tell how she’s going to measure up comparatively since she’s not been able to go to the forums and things over the last few months,” Sims said.
Once a winner is declared in November, they’ll likely face a runoff and be sworn into office in January. Turner’s term expires in 2026, so another election will be held next year and the filing deadline will precede the runoff.
Confused yet? To make matters more interesting, there’s still a question of whether redistricting maps approved in 2021 or those approved this summer could be overturned. Both are tied up in litigation in federal court. And U.S. Rep. Al Green, who has opted not to file for the special election for Sylvester Turner’s unexpired seat, could join the race in January for the full two-year term, thanks to the new redistricting boundaries.
“The candidates have got to make up their minds to run for the new District 18 before the runoff is held,” Sims said. “If Al Green is in the race, you don’t bow out but you recognize that your campaign is more challenging, running against a quasi-incumbent.”
Turner’s staff has remained in D.C. since his death in March and “worked hard to provide basic services,” but the constituents of District 18 haven’t had a voice or a vote, Sims added.
“The major things that have been debated like the Big Beautiful Bill, there was no representation from their district,” she said. “Would it have changed the legislation? Not likely, but it’s not fair to not have a voice.”
