Dominic Anthony Walsh/Houston Public Media
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center in Houston on Nov. 4, 2025.
More than 200,000 voters turned out to polling locations across Harris County on Tuesday, weighing in on local municipal and school board elections, statewide propositions and a Houston-based congressional seat that’s been vacant for months.
Polls on Election Day opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m. There were 600 polling locations in Harris County, and voters registered in the county could cast ballots at any of those locations. Some voters also were eligible to vote by mail.
The early voting turnout in Harris County was about 8%, with more than 212,000 voters casting ballots between Oct. 20-31. That was down from the 239,000 who voted early during the last state constitutional amendment election in November 2023.
Sarah Grunau/Houston Public Media
Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth speaks about voting on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, the office of Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said another 102,000 voters had cast their ballots — with hopes to see a total Election Day turnout of about 200,000 voters.
RELATED: How to vote in the November 2025 election in Harris County
“The sheer size of Harris County is the combination of 25 states put together, and so vote centers can be anywhere from your church in your neighborhood to a community center, to an HOA facility,” Hudspeth said.
Houston voter Marlene Matzner said she was “happy to see a big crowd” at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, where some mid-afternoon voters reported wait times of about 1 hour or longer. Matzner said she votes in every election and went to the polls this fall to chime in about the proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution as well as a local school board race.
“It’s just important,” she said. “Local is as important as anything. If we can’t control our local government, we’re not able to control anything else in our political lives.”
Waiting game
Elected trustees in Houston ISD do not have voting power amid ongoing intervention by the Texas Education Agency, but the candidates who win Tuesday could gain voting power before the end of their four-year terms.
The contested races on the ballot are for District 5, where Maria Benzon is facing Robbie McDonough; District 6, where incumbent Kendall Baker takes on Michael McDonough; and District 7, a race between incumbent Bridget Wade and Audrey Nath.
As those six candidates anxiously awaited results Tuesday night, two others already know their fate. Felicity Pereyra and Myrna Guidry are running unopposed for the District 1 and District 9 seats, respectively.
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Campaign signs for Houston ISD trustee candidates stand outside the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center on Nov. 4, 2025.
Guidry, an incumbent, told Houston Public Media that for her Election Day is “bittersweet.”
“While I am truly grateful to be entrusted with this elected position, I am saddened by the fact that we continue to have to sit by the sidelines,” she added. “I am anxious to return to my seat on the dais as an elected HISD trustee to create policy that ensures the students are truly learning, great educators and administration are at the helm and that my community can be heard.”
Elected trustees in HISD, the largest district in the state, have no governing authority until at least June 2027. The Texas Education Agency has appointed its own board of managers as part of its takeover of HISD, which began in 2023.
A potential referendum
School board seats in Aldine ISD, Cy-Fair ISD and Klein ISD also are up for grabs. The trustee races in Cy-Fair ISD have been especially heated as politically conservative candidates look to maintain their majority on the board.
Scarlet McGeorge from Cypress voted Tuesday afternoon and said she is supporting the conservative slate of school board candidates for Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.
Current trustee Natalie Blasingame (position 6), along with Radele Walker (position 5) and George Edwards (position 7), have nicknamed their slate “NRG” after the first initials of their first names. The trio has been endorsed by Glorious Way Church, the Harris County Republican Party, the Texas Republican Party and others.
McGeorge said she wants her grandson to go to public school, but said, “I will not allow him to go to public school if all of this bad is going on in the public schools.”
She said candidate Natalie Blasingame’s conservative values were very important to her when considering who to vote for, and she wants to see the conservative majority hold in the school district before she feels like she can send her grandson to public schools.
McGeorge said that for her, it’s “good against bad. You know, God has a side, and I want to be on that side.”
However, for voters like Julia Figueroa, who also took to the polls on Election Day, the current direction of the school board is “concerning.”
Bianca Seward
Figueroa has lived in Cypress for ten years and said that although she doesn’t have any children of her own, she does pay school property taxes.
“So, it’s important to me that children have access to bias-free education, and I see that happening if we can get a more bias-free school board,” Figueroa said.
Figueroa said she planned to vote for Lesley Guilmart (position 5), Cleveland Lane, Jr. (position 6), and Kendra Camarina (position 7) — the self-proclaimed “pro-public education slate.”
Cy-Fair ISD gained a 6-1 conservative majority in 2023 and over the last couple of years implemented a number of ultra-conservative policies like aggressive book banning and implementing bible focused elective courses.
Tonight’s result may reveal how popular or unpopular those changes are with the public.
Lesley Guilmart and Radele Walker, opponents in the position 5 race, spent the last couple of hours of Election Day both campaigning outside the Juergen’s Hall Community Center in Cypress.
Walker is running as part of the self-described conservative slate and said, if elected, she’ll first tackle the budget.
“We’re $50 million in debt, and we need to look at why,” she said. “We’ve only got to cut like one to 2% in order to meet our budget, so I think it can be done.”
On the other side of the parking lot, Guilmart was in good spirits.
If elected, Guilmart said her first vote would reverse the old board’s recent textbook censorship.
“The very first vote I would love to take would be to uncensor those 13 chapters that were censored in 2024,” she said. “I’m told that it’s a matter of like, pushing a button to turn them back on, because their online instructional materials should cost nothing. So I think that’s a really quick, easy win that the community really wants.”
With just two hours left before the polls closed, there was a healthy line of voters at the Juergen’s Hall Community Center, but it was moving quickly, with most waiting no more than 10-15 minutes to cast their ballots.
Long-awaited opportunity
Eight months after the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, his constituents in Houston finally have the chance to select his successor.
A special election for the right to complete Turner’s term in Texas’ 18th Congressional District is among the key races on the ballot. Sixteen candidates are vying for the seat, which has been held by a Black Democrat for more than 50 years.
Thomas Perumean/Houston Public Media
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center in Houston on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
Two of the congressional candidates made early appearances at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center. Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards and acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, the leading candidates in terms of recent polling and campaign fundraising, made pitches to voters and also addressed the significance of their race.
“We’ve been without a vote, we’ve been without a voice, we’ve been without our advocate for federal funding for far too long,” Edwards said. “And so for this district in particular, this is a very special opportunity to get their voice back.”
While the 18th Congressional District has gone without representation in Washington, Edwards said she’s made trips to the Texas Capitol in Austin to advocate for residents of the district. Menefee also described himself as an advocate for those constituents, many of whom he has served as the county attorney.
RELATED: Here is what’s on the November 2025 ballot in Harris County
The race also includes state Rep. Jolanda Jones and fellow Democrat Isaiah Martin, a former staffer for the late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who preceded Turner in the congressional seat. Among the Republicans on the ballot is Carmen Maria Montiel. Political independent George Edward Foreman IV, a son of the late boxing champion George Foreman, has a familiar name to Houston residents.
Fair wages and affordable health care are among the important issues to residents of the 18th District, according to Menefee.
“The number of billionaires has exploded in this country. The most wealthiest folks are paying less in taxes than they ever have in the history of this country,” he said. “What that says to me is we have a deeply embedded problem of income inequality, of wealth inequality in the country. We’re now working more for the billionaires and the ultra-rich than we are for the average working Joe and Jane.”
Walter Mallett came to the Kashmere Multi-Service Center in the 18th Congressional District to cast his ballot Tuesday afternoon.
“The 18th district needs to be more respected, and I think we have been disrespected … as far as no representation is concerned,” he said. “Every district needs to be respected and led properly.”
Mallett has lived in the area for about 20 years, and said the lack of representation has negatively impacted his neighborhood. He declined to say which candidate he supported in the congressional race.
“I’ve seen a lot of growth,” Mallett said. “I’m seeing more growth. I’m seeing more people come in, and I’m seeing more people getting pushed out because we don’t have the proper representation that we need to secure our own property and our own land here in this area.”
For Lanora Brown, who’s lived in the area for most of her life, policing and development were at the top of her mind as she entered the polling area at the Kashmere Multi-Service Center on Tuesday. Brown said she planned to mostly support Republican candidates.
“I want to make sure my community is actually validated, our voices are heard — [to] make sure the right people are in office,” she said.
Sitting in lawn chairs outside Candlelight Park’s community center in north Houston, Jimmy and Sylvia Huey said they had a clear favorite candidate in the congressional race for District 18 — their son, Stephen.
Jimmy and Sylvia don’t live in District 18, but they’re handing out flyers and asking residents to vote for their son
“He’s running on a tighter budget than most of the others, so he needs people to volunteer and come out and help him,” Jimmy said, “And of course, his parents, we’re just obvious people that need to do that.”
Sylvia quipped in, almost correcting Jimmy, “And we feel that he’s the best candidate, because he has a broad range of background in his career so far. So we think he knows a lot about different things.”
In Harris County, ballots also include a special election for a Houston City Council seat and elections for several other local municipalities and utility districts.
Constitutional crisis?
Seventeen proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution also will be decided by voters, who are being asked to weigh in on taxation, bail practices, dementia research and the state’s water supply, among other issues.
Two voters Tuesday at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, located on West Gray Street in west Houston, seemed perplexed about some of the statewide constitutional amendments on the ballot, along with the number of them.
Thomas Perumean/Houston Public Media
Voters stand in line outside the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center in Houston on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
The 17 propositions appearing before voters across Texas are an increase from November 2023, when there were 14 constitutional amendments on the ballot.
“It doesn’t seem normal,” Houston resident Geraldo Olivo said. “It seems like a lot.”
Many of the propositions on this year’s ballot are related to taxation, including property tax exemptions. There also are measures related to disciplining state judges, funding for technical colleges, U.S. citizenship requirements for voting and parental rights.
Voting “yes” for Proposition 15 would affirm the rights and responsibilities of parents, who already have the right to care for their children.
“We are voting on whether or not parents have sovereignty over their children. Why is this necessary for a constitutional amendment?” Houston voter Feliza Bencosme said. “It’s just a very sad state of affairs that we are in.”
Olivo said he wanted to exercise his right to weigh in on the statewide propositions as well as the more local races on the ballot, and he hoped others would do the same throughout the course of the day.
“I know it’s important, so I’m here,” he said. “So I want to make sure. I want to do something.”
Houston Public Media’s Sarah Grunau, Thomas Perumean, Bianca Seward, Michael Adkinson, Natalie Weber and Dominic Anthony Walsh contributed to this report.
