2009 Election Map: Pam Holm
She killed in her own district. Why she didn't capitalize from being the only female in the race AND having a huge warchest to communicate with? Feel free to speculate. Mine is that it's inside baseball, but she was not very well served by her political consultant. Once we saw that all she spent on cable was $25k, she pretty much showed her cards and it wasn't good.
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I don't know about killing in her own district. She got 16k votes, but there were also 13k who voted for her opponents. I think most District CMs would have done better than that in their own districts after 6 years. Sure, it's 55%, but 60% gets her in the runoff. I think she lost it in G -- whether she took it for granted and campaigned elsewhere, or whether she just isn't that popular there, I don't know.
Well, more to the point, she won 66% in the Galleria/Tanglewood area and River Oaks, while winning 61% in far-west Memorial precincts. That certainly doesn't encompass the entirety of her district, but in a three-way race, I'd argue those numbers represent a good enough kill rate.
Her downfall came from hiring Bethel Nathan as her campaign manager. She spent too much time trying to peel off black votes from Green and wrote too many checks that went toward lining Nathan's pockets. That she was the best-funded candidate, yet only spent $25k to advertise on cable was a telling strategic mistake. It's no wonder the campaign tried to get by without filing that information.
Now, that said, yes ... she still should have made the runoff. I find it highly ironic that all her attacks on Green served to send votes to MJ Khan. And it's not entirely apparent that the bulk of those votes came out of Green's hide.