1. He's losing small chunks of the conservative vote to Stephen Costello.
2. His campaign is being seen as an attempt to re-position himself as a conservative option, which is failing in the eyes of some of the voters that he is relying on falling his way.
There's another reason that I think Mr. King finds himself struggling:
His position (or lack thereof) on HER Ordinance hardly screams "leader"
Here's the quoted tweet from UH College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
Lightning round. Yes or no answers only. Vote for HERO ordinance? Yes from all candidates except Ben Hall (no) and Bill King (abstain).
(Emphasis mine)
Putting on my armchair political consultant's hat for a minute, I think this is absolutely the worst position that any candidate who is positioning himself as a "leader who can get things done" would want to take.
Bill King looks like he's afraid to address the big issues here. I realize what he's going for is to appear uninterested in such little things as the Grand Urinal Bargain of 2014 but it's not working. What it looks like is that he's uncomfortable addressing what is potentially the biggest (and most divisive) ballot issue in November.
He's also ceding the social conservative vote to Ben Hall.
Neither of these things bodes well for the King campaign. As a result I've dropped him in my odds for making a run-off. Currently, we're a little over two-months out from the voters heading to the polls. That's both good for the King campaign and a negative as well.
The good news is that most Houston voters aren't paying much attention to the race. This means that the only people who have noticed his indecision are the relatively small groups that have staked out activist positions on HER Ordinance.
The bad news is that, two months for a campaign that appears to react as slowly to issues as does his, could be not enough time to right the ship and hone the message. Mr. King needs to do a much better job on this, and fast if he wants to have a chance.
I currently have the odds at 299 to 1 against that he won't.
