Doug Greco (left) and Mayor Kirk Watson (photos courtesy of the candidates’ Campaigns)
The filing window for City Council elections does not officially open for another month, but the field in the mayoral race is already well established and unlikely to see any significant change before the Aug. 19 filing deadline.
Incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson is running and, according to the campaign consultants and political activists we talked to, he’s the odds-on favorite to win the race – perhaps even without a runoff. Already, he’s been endorsed by eight of his Council colleagues (Council Members Alison Alter and Mackenzie Kelly being the exceptions). He’s also been endorsed by every member of the Travis County Commissioners Court except Margaret Gómez (who remained neutral on the mayor’s race in 2022), a slew of Central Texas legislators, and various community leaders throughout the Austin-Round Rock metro area.
Watson will also have a significant fundraising advantage over his opponents. In the last election, Watson raised more than $1 million on his own and campaign consultants predict he could raise even more this go-around. The political action committee supporting Watson (chaired by former interim City Manager Jesús Garza) raised another $1 million in 2022; the PAC supporting the mayor in 2024 is kicking into gear now, which could result in another $1 million in contributions – if that money is even needed.
Unlike in 2022, Watson’s challengers are unlikely to pose a fundraising threat. For one, there are simply more of them. In ’22, Celia Israel was Watson’s sole challenger for Austin’s liberal vote (about 75% of the electorate), but in this race, Watson has three opponents who will each have unique appeal to Austin’s liberal voters. That means the three challengers will be competing against each other for campaign cash.
And a fourth candidate may enter the race. Austin Justice Coalition Executive Director Chas Moore has been urged to run by Austin progressives (some justice groups are unlikely to support Watson following his controversial decision to partner with the Texas Department of Public Safety on a targeted enforcement program that disproportionately impacted East Austin). Moore tells us he’s still thinking it over. “I do want to run,” Moore said, “I’m just making sure that I run at the right time.”
Shortly after they announced their runs, the Chronicle covered Kathie Tovo and Carmen Llanes Pulido’s campaigns. This week, we’re taking a look at Doug Greco.
Greco, Activist and Organizer, Enters the Stage
Doug Greco was already contemplating a run for mayor of Austin when, in November, Council approved an incentive package for microchip manufacturer NXP, just a couple of months after Watson announced a deal was in the works. The incentive package is the kind that Greco knows well; at his former day job as executive director and lead organizer of Central Texas Interfaith (he stepped down in January to focus on his mayoral campaign), he led efforts aimed at killing such incentive deals. Under Greco’s leadership, CTI helped kill the state program that companies used to rely on for incentive packages.
Greco organized against companies trying to deprive cash-strapped public school districts from tax revenues through incentive agreements (in 2022, Central Texas Interfaith helped defeat a similar deal between NXP and Austin ISD). The city/NXP deal was relatively small, but Greco hoped to sit down with Watson and other Council members to discuss it. He did meet with two CMs, but never with the mayor himself – only an aide.
Greco says Watson’s lack of engagement with Central Texas Interfaith was the inflection point that convinced him to run. “The city needs a mayor that is not going to dismiss people and who is going to sit down with folks in the community that have expertise,” Greco told us June 6.
“The city needs a mayor that is not going to dismiss people.” – Doug Greco
Greco, a gay man who briefly worked as programs director for Equality California, one of the largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations in the nation, before reestablishing roots in Austin, said showing vocal solidarity with Austin’s large LGBTQ population would be a focus of his mayoral administration. Greco emphasized how important that kind of leadership will be for Austin’s queer community as Texas Republicans are poised to ramp up attacks on the rights of LGBTQ Texans in the state’s next legislative session. “Our young LGBTQ activists need political leaders at the Capitol fighting alongside them,” Greco told us. “I’ll work with state leaders,” Greco said of how he would approach relationships with Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, “but I won’t work for them.”
More locally, Greco said he would focus on “human development.” That means prioritizing the city budget to focus on maintaining living wages for city employees and contractors, building up workforce development and education programs, and growing the city’s portfolio of affordable housing offerings.
On housing, Greco said he agreed that the city’s land use rules were in dire need of updating (essentially, that’s what Council did with recently approved changes to the Land Development Code). He broadly approves of the direction Council moved in (adding housing density around transit, with less intensive changes in neighborhoods), but he also shared concerns among some advocates that the changes brought on by the Home Options for Mobility and Equity (HOME) initiative would favor “institutional investors” over the average homeowner.
“We need more housing at all income levels,” Greco said, adding that he would push to expand subsidized housing throughout the city and focus on the kind of mortgage and down payment assistance programs that would help make HOME more accessible to less affluent homeowners.
Greco, Llanes Pulido, and Tovo may be facing an uphill battle in seeking to topple Austin’s incumbent mayor (something that has only been accomplished once in the city’s history, local campaign consultant Jim Wick tells us), but they are all off and running.
As Wick pointed out, for the first time ever, Austin will vote for mayor on the same ballot they vote for the president. Wick – who ran the 2021 petition campaign to aligned the mayor and presidential elections in Austin – said that could make the race less predictable. “There will be a broad electorate for candidates to appeal to,” Wick said, “with many more young and economically and ethnically diverse voters. It is also likely to be the most liberal electorate in Austin’s history.”
Editor's note Thursday, June 20 10:15am: A previous version of this story misquoted Doug Greco as saying "I'll work with stateleaders, but I won't work with them." But he said, "I'll work with state leaders, but I won't workforthem" The statement has been updated. We regret the error.
