Voters in Texas’ 18th congressional district’s Tuesday special election rejected Democratic Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who used violent language in calling for the “wipe out” of Republicans on CNN in October.
Jones finished third in the all-party primary to succeed the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March after just two months in office, the Associated Press (AP) projected early Wednesday morning. The state lawmaker was therefore locked out of advancing to a runoff election that will feature the top two vote-getters, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards.
With 78% of the vote in, Menefee had won 29.4% of the vote, compared with 25.7% for Edwards and 18.7% for Jones, according to the Associated Press (AP).
“So, if you hit me in my face, I’m not going to punch you back in your face, I’m going to go across your neck, because we can go back and forth fighting each other’s faces. You’ve got to hit hard enough where they won’t come back,” Jones told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Oct. 22.
The Democratic lawmaker’s remarks came just over a month after the Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who died after being shot in the neck. (RELATED: AOC Chews Up Nearly 3 Minutes On House Floor Trashing Charlie Kirk’s Memory)
AUSTIN, TEXAS – AUGUST 01: U.S. Rep. Jolanda Jones (D-TX) looks at a map during the Texas State Representatives redistricting committee meeting on August 01, 2025 in Austin, Texas. The House Select committee on Congressional Redistricting holds its first hearing since Texas Republicans redrew their congressional map (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“And so, yeah, for the same way I went to New York and spoke with Governor Kathy Hochul and said if they’re going to try to wipe us out in Texas, we need to wipe out every Republican in New York, in California, in Illinois, so no one can make me feel bad about fighting for the people that I represent,” Jones added on CNN, appearing to call for further gerrymandering blue states to offset Texas Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting.
Jones, in August, openly compared Texas’ GOP-friendly redistricting to the Holocaust during an appearance on former CNN host Don Lemon’s podcast.
“I will liken this to the Holocaust. People are like ‘well, how did the Holocaust happen? How is somebody in the position to kill all of them people?’ Well, good people remain silent or good people didn’t realize that what happens to them can very soon happen to me or somebody I love,” she told Lemon on “The Don Lemon Show,” referring to black Americans whom she claimed were in danger of being “targeted” by Republicans.
Jones was one of the over 50 Democratic Texas state Representatives who fled the state in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the state House from passing the new redistricted map.
The runoff’s winner will be the Houston-based seat’s fourth representative in just over a year.
The heavily Democratic 18th district had been held by the late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee from 1995 until her death in July 2024. Jackson Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, won a special election to replace her deceased mother and held the seat for less than two months. She was succeeded by Turner, a former mayor of Houston, who had won the seat in November 2024.
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