Houston mayoral candidates make final push for votes

The race for Houston mayor is entering the home stretch.

Polls will open Saturday and Houstonians will elect a new mayor.

For the two candidates, Bill King and Sylvester Turner, it means a final push to round up support.

On the night before the runoff election, labor groups supporting Turner explained how they plan to get people to the polls on what could be a wet Saturday. Turner said he will crisscross the city in the final hours.

"A lot of knocking on doors," Turner said. "A lot of phone calling. But just going form one part of the city to another. (I'm) not going to be able to talk to everyone, but you try to do as much as you can in a limited time."

At his campaign headquarters, King spent his afternoon on the phone trying to convince voters that his "Back to Basics" plan is the right plan for Houston.

"We've campaigned across the entire city," King said. "We have been to every single neighborhood there is. A vote in Sunnyside counts just as much as a vote in Memorial, and we're getting votes in both places and all around the city. You look at the end of the day, when you win the election, you have to govern the whole city. So it's important that you campaign in every place so people know you care about their neighborhoods."

Both candidates have one thing in common -- they both want Houstonians to vote. They just have different ideas of how.

"This is an exciting race for the first time in many mayoral elections," University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said. "We've got a really competitive race between a Republican and a Democrat. It's a non-partisan race, but it's clearly presented itself as a more partisan race."