Name: Ex-Harris County clerk accidentally announces campaign bid to reclaim old job
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Ex-Harris County clerk accidentally announces campaign bid to reclaim old job

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateFormer Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart will run again for his old job, he confirmed Wednesday, joining two other Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for the November special election.Incumbent clerk Diane Trautman, who in 2018, announced earlier this month she May 31 because of undisclosed health concerns.The Democratic and Republican parties must nominate candidates to fill the remaining two years of her term.“I’ve got eight years’ experience, and the name ID necessary to win in November,” Stanart said in a phone call. “I’m calling precinct chairs and doing very well asking for their endorsement.”More from Zach DespartStanart’s announcement Wednesday was the result of a mix-up; he said he thought he was talking to a Harris County Republican Party precinct chair when a Houston Chronicle reporter called him. He said he had planned to go public with his candidacy next week.The other announced Republican candidates to date are former Houston city councilman Bert Keller and former Harris County judicial candidate Michelle Fraga.Stanart, a software and electronics engineer, served two terms as county clerk beginning in 2011. He said he made the county’s voting system by creating an iPad-based electronic poll book to check in voters at polling locations. This system replaced paper books, and allowed Trautman to implement countywide voting, since each device can store the entire county roll of 2.4 million voters.With a broad smile, bouffant of white hair and wide mustache, Stanart was better known to the public than previous county clerks, if sometimes for negative reasons. Delayed voting results prompted Twitter users to coin the hashtag “#FireStanStanart” on election nights. His successor met the same fate when elections went awry on her watch, with the similar, though less alliterative “#FireDianeTrautman.”The special election creates an opportunity for Republicans to re-capture a post two years sooner than if Trautman had remained on the job. A Republican has not won a countywide race during a presidential year since 2012, however. Democrats countywide elected offices.With the county consistently trending blue, a successful Republican candidate would need to woo a significant number of Democratic voters, said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett employed that ticket-splitting strategy in 2018, and outperformed other Republicans on the ballot. Still, he narrowly lost.President Donald Trump’s unpopularity in Harris County could make that task even more difficult, Jones said.“For any Republican candidate to win in this race, they’re going to have to significantly outperform the GOP benchmark,” Jones said. “Which means they’re going to need so bring some independent qualities and independent characteristics to the table to convince a significant number of people who otherwise would vote Democratic to vote for them.”Stanart would struggle to reinvent himself as a moderate candidate, Jones said. He long has courted the Republican Party’s right wing by touting his conservative credentials and campaigning to “stop socialism.” He drew accusations of anti-semitism in 2018 for alleging on his campaign website that Hungarian-American financier George Soros, a longtime backer of progressive causes, Harris County elections.No Democratic candidates have announced bids for the party’s nomination. Teneshia Hudspeth, Trautman’s deputy whom several public speakers urged Commissioners Court to appoint as interim clerk last week, declined comment Wednesday.The court Christopher Hollins, a Houston lawyer and Texas Democratic Party official. Hollins said he would not seek the job on a permanent basis, and instead pledged to focus on running the July primary runoff and November general elections.zach.despart@chron.com

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateFormer Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart will run again for his old job, he confirmed Wednesday, joining two other Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for the November special election.Incumbent clerk Diane Trautman, who in 2018, announced earlier this month she May 31 because of undisclosed health concerns.The Democratic and Republican parties must nominate candidates to fill the remaining two years of her term.“I’ve got eight years’ experience, and the name ID necessary to win in November,” Stanart said in a phone call....

Ex-Harris County clerk accidentally announces campaign bid to reclaim old job

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