State Sen. John Whitmire is emerging as the de facto choice of Republican voters and donors, who appear to view the veteran Democrat as the most viable Houston mayoral option they can stomach.

Whitmire’s campaign strategy is a test of whether he can assemble a coalition of conservatives and right-leaning moderates without ceding too many Democrats — the biggest partisan voting bloc in an increasingly blue city — to his main rival, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. The GOP support has helped fuel Whitmire’s enormous fundraising advantage, with more than $50,000 coming from donors who helped bankroll last year’s campaign of Alexandra del Moral Mealer, the Republican nominee for Harris County judge.

Billionaire casino and Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, Gallery Furniture owner Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale and real estate developer Richard Weekley are among the major Republican donors helping Whitmire raise money.

Mayoral contender and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee won the endorsement of the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus after a fiery, five-hour meeting Saturday, beating out a gay candidate and another longtime caucus ally to win the progressive group’s backing.

Jackson Lee was greeted by supporters with a standing ovation at the beginning of the meeting Saturday and raised a pamphlet showing her first caucus endorsement from 1984, when she was running for a civil court bench. She told the membership she has worked to safeguard housing funds for people living with AIDS, and one supporter credited her for recalling her visits to the Milam House, a hospice facility that cared for gay men in Houston dying of AIDS.

“How far we’ve come together,” Jackson Lee told the crowd. “I’ve had the LGBTQ+ community in my offices, and an HIV-infected, if you will, gay man as my district director, and on and on and on.”

Her victory by a vote of 136-52 came as caucus members, including many Jackson Lee supporters, expressed concerns about the conservative support coalescing around fellow front-runner state Sen. John Whitmire, a Democrat and another longtime backer of the caucus. Councilmember Robert Gallegos, who is gay, attorney Lee Kaplan and former Metro Chair Gilbert Garcia also addressed the crowd, but the members' deliberations focused on the leading candidates.