Whitmire approval unexpectedly high according to UH poll

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/houston/2025/04/10/518505/despite-street-and-crime-frustrations-houstonians-satisfied-with-mayor-whitmires-work-poll-shows/?amp=1

How did UH do this poll? Apparently Whitmire has overwhelmingly high approval. 61% in their 2024 poll, and in 2025 59% approve of his work in office. I genuinely can’t think of a positive thing he has done.

I know him for really only negative things:

• Dismantling MetroNEXT, a proposal that passed with more votes than he got in his mayoral election,

• He wastes city funds tearing up recently completed projects.

• He prioritizes street work outside of his own personal neighborhood

• Said people in Gulfton were all “undocumented immigrants” who wouldn’t be welcome in the Galleria. This was is reason for denying rapid transit between the neighborhoods which would allow people to get to work. Gulfton has the highest percentage of households without a car (12%) in Houston. Gulfton is also the hottest neighborhood in Houston. He is denying safe and efficient transit to the populations who need it most.

• He claims bikers are just wealthy, noisy complainers who want to prioritize their “recreation” over car transport. Despite the fact that it’s from people of the lowest income brackets who have the highest proportion people who bike to work.

• Put a person with clear conflicts of interest as Chairperson of Metro. Elizabeth Brock is a founder of Evolve. Which is the “last mile shuttle service” recently contracted by METRO. She clearly stands to financially benefit from being chairperson of METRO, and by contracting her own service is demonstrating a willingness to steal from the coffers of METRO to put funds into her own pockets.

If someone could explain to me anything positive he is perceived as having done I’d love to know it. If this poll is legit, I seriously must be missing something about this man because I don’t see it.