Dive Brief:
- Dave Wilson, a white anti-gay activist, won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees by just 26 votes after misleading voters to believe he was black.
- Wilson distributed direct mail solicitations in the predominantly black district featuring pictures of smiling African-American faces, which he says he lifted from the Internet, and the words "Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson."
- One of the mailers additionally stated that the message was "Endorsed by Ron Wilson," which Houstonians could have mistakenly believed to have come from a former African-American state representative, but was actually from Wilson's Iowan cousin—a detail noted in fine print.
Dive Insight:
Wilson is known in the area as a "political troublemaker" who ran a failed campaign to become mayor in 2011 and, in 2009, attacked a gay candidate with thousands of mailers. Low blows during an election are nothing new, but this latest stunt seems a bit too far. Wilson's opponent, Bruce Austin, held the seat for 24 years and described the situation as "disgusting." He plans to seek a recount, saying Wilson never even published his picture in the League of Voters pamphlet or anywhere else. Wilson, however, says he won fairly and that voters were simply responding to the board's actions after several alleged instances of it steering contracts to relatives, friends and poltiical allies.