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Houston mayor Annise D. Parker has won reelection despite a low approval rating and antigay rhetoric leveled against her by a challenger.
With all precincts reporting, Parker won with 51% of the vote while her nearest competitors struggled in the mid-teens during an evening of low voter turnout.
Parker had led the field in campaign spending by a large margin: She spent $2.3 million while her opponents spent considerably less, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Candidate Dave Wilson, who assailed Parker during the campaign for her sexual orientation, garnered just 12% of the vote.
“Being homosexual is one thing, but using your position of power to promote the homosexual agenda is quite another,” Wilson wrote in a May campaign mailer.
Nearly two years ago, Parker noted in her victory speech that voters ultimately rejected such bigoted tactics in electing her as mayor of the nation’s fourth-largest city. “Tonight the voters of Houston have opened the door to history,” she said in 2009. “I acknowledge that. I embrace that. I know what this win means to many of us who never thought we could achieve high office.”
