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WASHINGTON —U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, defeated former City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards on Tuesday in what was the most competitive Democratic primary of her congressional career.
The AP called the race for her after midnight.
“We got this election by going to one voter at a time, one neighborhood at a time,” Jackson Lee said to a crowd of supporters Tuesday night. “I didn't take one race as the end of Sheila Jackson Lee. I didn't even get angry. Because I love the people of Houston and the people of the 18th congressional district. I got busy to be able to continue to work for them.”
Jackson Lee had defeated her previous four primary challengers by landslide margins over the course of her 30 tenure in Congress. But, after an unsuccessful pivot to the Houston mayor’s office this past fall, when her campaign was marred with negative media after audio of her berating her congressional staffers was leaked, she promptly announced her candidacy for reelection to the U.S. House.
By the time Jackson Lee announced she was running for her House seat again, challenger Amanda Edwards – a former Jackson Lee intern – was already making headway.
Edwards is a native Houstonian, and she served as an at-large Houston City Council member from 2016 to 2020, where she represented a constituency of more than 2 million people. In 2020, she had her first foray into state politics when she joined a crowded Democratic primary field, vying to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Edwards came in fifth place in the statewide primary and third in Harris County. Edwards initially ran for Houston mayor until Jackson Lee threw her hat in the ring, causing Edwards to endorse the congresswoman as mayor and begin her own campaign for Congress.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Edwards outraised the congresswoman 10 to 1 — $272,000 to Jackson Lee’s $23,000. By the time early voting began, Edwards was trailing Jackson Lee by a narrow 5-point margin 43% to 38%, according to a survey of likely Democratic primary election voters by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.
“And let me say this, they said we were down,” Jackson Lee said. “They said it would be a close race, but look what the people of the 18th congressional district said. They said we are worthy, we are worthy.”
Edwards has drawn endorsements from organizations that previously supported Jackson Lee, some of whom like the Harris County chapter president of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats were still “quite upset” over the comments made in the leaked tape. On the recording Jackson Lee berates a staffer for not having a document she was looking for and calls two of her staffers “Goddamn big-ass children, fuckin’ idiots who serve no Goddamn purpose.”
Jackson Lee has a long list of powerful endorsements from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, to House Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Minority Whip Katherine Clarke. She’s backed by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other members of Texas’ Washington delegation including Democratic Reps. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Joaquin Castro of San Antonio.
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