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HOUSTON — City Controller Annise Parker held a narrow advantage over former City Attorney Gene Locke as they led a field of four major candidates Tuesday seeking to become mayor of America’s fourth-biggest city.
With 25 percent of precincts counted, Parker had almost 30 percent of the vote and Locke nearly 27 percent. Architect and urban planner Peter Brown — by far the biggest spender in the race — had 25 percent. County school Trustee Roy Morales had 18 percent.If no one receives 50 percent, the two top finishers will meet in a runoff, likely next month.Elections officials, who expected a 25 percent turnout, revised their forecast to as little as half that amount.Brown, 72, a two-term Houston councilman, sank more than $2 million of his wife’s wealth into his bid to succeed Bill White, who is term-limited after six years in office.Parker, 52, would be Houston’s first openly gay mayor. Locke, 61, would be the city’s second black mayor, and Morales, 53, would be Houston’s first Hispanic mayor.Except for Brown’s expenditures — bankrolled primarily from the fortune of his wife, oil-field services heiress Anne Schlumberger — the race was noteworthy for its lack of fireworks.Brown’s cash allowed him to boost name recognition because he could run broadcast ads far earlier than his chief opponents, then blanket the city of nearly 2 1/2 million with mailings and more commercials as the election neared.Still, no clear favorite emerged. Independent pre-election polls showed Brown with a slight edge, although "don’t know" was the favored response among those surveyed."The race started slow and lost momentum, characterized by a civility rarely observed in an open race for one of the most powerful mayor positions in the United States," said Richard Murray, director of surveying for the University of Houston Center for Public Policy."Voters hardly seemed aware they had to choose a replacement" for White, he said.Brown touted his "blueprint" for the city, stressing greater efficiencies to create jobs, protect neighborhoods, take better care of resources and combat the city’s legendary traffic, recurring flooding and crime.His campaign pitch, however, wasn’t much different from the other hopefuls’.Parker said her six years on the City Council followed by six years as city controller, during which she reviewed city spending, would allow her to immediately step into the top job.Locke attracted endorsements and financial backing from business leaders, cashing in on his three-year tenure in the 1990s as city attorney under popular Mayor Bob Lanier, who supported him. Locke cultivated city insiders since then as legal counsel to several government agencies.Morales’ minuscule campaign fundraising kept him off TV and radio.The race was nonpartisan, although Brown, Locke and Parker are Democrats. Morales, a retired Air Force officer, offered himself as an alternative, a conservative Republican in a city that’s largely Democratic, about 25 percent black and one-third Hispanic.Incumbent White, who did not endorse a successor, plans to seek the Democratic nomination to succeed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison if she resigns to run for governor in 2010.
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