And now for the rest of the story: George's predictions in the At-Large and the Controller races: You can see the predictions on the District races in the Analysis section of this web site.

With early voting ending we had In person a total 59,548 voters There could be another 20000 votes by mail. The Anglo locations voted 96% of what they did in the November election,Hispanics 97% and African American 68%.

Kingwood, West Gray and Moody Park actually voted a little more in the runoff than the first election so someone has been at work there getting their vote to the early polls.

This could cause some of the candidates to be sweating on Saturday night.

But here is what I see:

Controller: Annise Parker will become the next City of Houston Controller. She could lead in the total votes, but I think she will be close to 57% over Bruce Tatro at 43%

At-Large 3. I think this could be too close to call, but if I had to bet I would go with the incumbent and the Woman in the race, City Council Member Shelley Gibbs. Peter Brown has run a great race and I strongly support him and think he would be a great Council Member, but I think a Woman (and an incumbent) always has a leg up in a race against a male, unless the male has given a very good reason for her to be replaced and I have not seen that in this race. I hate to predict this and I hope I am wrong, Gibbs at 51%

At-Large 4. I think Bert Keller will win over Ronald Green. Green an African-American would be a good member of City Council, but Keller is on Black radio and on TV and I just don't think Green can pull it off with a turnout of only about 20% in his precincts. That is too bad as that would mean for the first time in over 25 years, there is no African-American At-Large member on the Council. Keller at 52%

This could mean that Bill White will have 9 Republican members on the Council and depending on who wins the District H race 8 of them could be Women. So, let's wait and see what happens on Saturday night and you can join Bill White and myself hoping I am wrong about the At-Large races.

I have not changed my opinion on the Mayor race. Here is what I wrote on November 14th and I think it is true today:

"It may have been over on November 4th. Orlando Sanchez has a big hill to climb and his campaign in the first election put him far down on the slope. If you knew that you had to appeal to voters who are moderates in the runoff then why would you run such a conservative campaign in the first election after Michael Berry got out?

Assumption: 270,000 voters in the runoff election on December, 6, 2003. 20% are African-American, 12% are Hispanics and of the 68% of the voters are Anglos, and a third of those Anglo voters are Democrats, Gays, Labor, etc.

African Americans: With Sylvester Turner out of the Mayor's race, but with Ronald Green in a runoff for an At-Large seat we should see a good turnout but fewer African-Americans voting. At total of 54000 votes of which Bill White will get 90% of that vote or 48600 votes and Sanchez the remainder or 5400 votes

Hispanics: A Total of 32400 votes. I believe that Sanchez will get only about 40% of this vote 12960. Bill White would get 60% or 19440 votes

Anglos: A total of 183,600 votes. Bill White should about split this vote with Orlando Sanchez with each getting 50% of the Anglo vote or 91800 votes for White and 91800 votes for Sanchez.

In this scenario Bill White would win big time with 159,840 votes (59%) to Sanchez's 110,160 (41%) votes