HOUSTON — The race for Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner between Republican Jack Cagle and Democratic Civil Court Judge Lesley Briones remained close Wednesday morning.
Cagle has served as county commissioner for Harris County Precinct 4 since 2011. He was last re-elected in 2018. Prior to serving as the commissioner, he served as an attorney and an elected judge.
Cagle is a graduate of Rice University with triple majors in economics, history, and managerial studies, as well as a graduate of Baylor Law School.
Briones previously served as judge of Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 4. She is a Harvard graduate and graduated from Yale Law School.
According to her website, Briones served as the president and co-founder of Texas Latinx Judges, and is a Houston co-chair of the National Association of Women Judges. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Prior to the election, polling in late October showed the incumbent Cagle with just a 5-point lead with a lot of undecided voters. And those undecided voters, in a district that has changed geographically, could be key to tilting the race one way or the other.
It was a statistical dead heat in Harris County Precinct 4 with one out of four voters undecided, according to a University of Houston poll.
“The reason for that is half of them don’t know enough about Cagle to have a positive or negative opinion of him and almost three quarters don’t know enough about Briones to have a positive or negative opinion about her,” Mark Jones, a senior research associate at the UH Hobby School and political science fellow at Rice University.
With a shift in boundaries for Precinct 4 now covering parts of northwest Harris County from Tomball, Cypress and Jersey Village, down to Alief and Asia town, Democrats were excited about their chances.
“We should win. We should carry it. We should flip it,” Odus Evbagharu, Harris County Democratic Chairman said in late October.
However, Commissioner Cagle said with the support of law enforcement and first responders and with action on flooding and opposing higher taxes, he expected to get re-elected.
“I am a staunch advocate for the taxpayer not the tax spender,” Cagle said.
Cagle was leading the University of Houston poll by 5 percent — 40 percent to 35, with 25 percent undecided. He said the Democratic majority was targeting him for his push to end wasteful spending like the elevate strategies contract where three people are now under indictment.
“The attacks on trying to pull back on the expansive growth of government taxation, we could always put an increase on taxes on the ballot and let the public decide whether they want that or not,” Cagle said.
Briones said if she makes it into office, her goal will be to make Harris County safer and more affordable.
“I am a working mom, raised by working parents, and will always fight for working families," she said. "I will always show up and work across the aisle to get the job done. I respectfully ask for your vote.