Mayor Sylvester Turner is headed to a December runoff against millionaire trial lawyer Tony Buzbee, according to unofficial results that showed the incumbent failing to secure a majority of votes in Tuesday's election.

Turner, who for most of the night hovered just below the threshold needed to avoid a runoff, finished with a wide lead over Buzbee but short of the majority required for an outright win. With 99.6 percent of Harris County voting centers reporting, Turner led the field with 47 percent, followed by Buzbee at 28 percent.

Bill King, an attorney and businessman who narrowly lost a 2015 runoff to Turner but struggled this time to compete financially with Buzbee, finished in third place with 14 percent, unofficial results showed.

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Councilman Dwight Boykins, who competed with Turner for the support of Democratic and black voters, trailed in fourth place with 6 percent, while former councilwoman Sue Lovell was in sixth. Seven other candidates combined for the remaining share of the vote.

In a statement released Wednesday morning, Turner framed the runoff as a contrast between "an experienced leader who has been delivering for Houston for more than 30 years" and a "Donald Trump imitator who has no experience, no ideas and will say anything, do anything or spend anything to get elected."

“I trust Houstonians to make the right decision for our city," Turner said.

ELECTION RESULTS: View Harris County results by precinct with our interactive map

Buzbee was on the stage of his watch party at 10 p.m., describing a humble upbringing in a small East Texas town and the feeling of now running to be Houston’s mayor.

“We’re gonna make the runoff,” he said. “We are going to win.”

Watching was a celebratory crowd of supporters wearing gold “I voted for Tony Buzbee” stickers handed to them when they arrived at the Crowne Plaza hotel near NRG Stadium.

Buzbee, wearing his Marines camouflage shirt over a black t-shirt, told his mother he loved her, and his campaign treasurer how great he was and, taking time to get to the point, described himself as the man to represent people who have been overlooked.

“Our city deserves better than what we have now,” he yelled out before exiting the stage.

King had not yet conceded Tuesday evening, but he left his election night party at Cadillac Bar shortly before 10 p.m. after acknowledging the grim-looking results.

“We live in a very discouraging political time,” King said. “We live in a time when the hyper-partisan, loud strident voices are prevailing in this country. It looks like they may prevail in this election tonight, although there’s still a lot of votes to be counted.”

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The election follows months of spirited campaigning by Turner and his top foes, who have taken sharp aim at the mayor’s first-term record managing the city’s $5 billion budget, Hurricane Harvey recovery and a labor dispute with the Houston firefighters union.

Turner has fiercely defended his record, arguing that he aptly guided the city through Harvey and helped close wide budget gaps by reforming the city’s troubled pension systems. He also has continued to contend that the city cannot afford pay raises secured by the firefighters through a ballot referendum, which a judge later overturned.

Pre-empting a widely anticipated rematch between Turner and King, Buzbee entered the race in October 2018 and wasted no time ramping up his attacks on Turner, accusing the mayor of engaging in corruption and cronyism — a charge Turner denies.

King announced his candidacy in February and built his platform around the same topic, while reprising his “back to basics” campaign theme from 2015, when he lost a runoff to Turner by about 2 percentage points.

Until early September, when he began participating in candidate forums, Turner largely ignored his foes, responding to them only through campaign spokespeople. Once he began clashing directly with his opponents, however, Turner focused his attacks on Buzbee, perceiving the deep-pocketed lawyer as his greatest threat.

Buzbee is self-financing his entire campaign and has vastly outspent Turner and the rest of the field, disbursing $8.7 million of the $10 million he had poured into his campaign account through late October.

Buzbee has portrayed himself as nonpartisan and independent, insisting he wants to talk about his plan for the city instead of getting caught up in partisan labels. Turner has worked particularly hard to tie Buzbee to President Donald Trump, however, noting that Buzbee once hosted a fundraiser for Trump and donated to his inauguration.

Lomi Kriel, Emily Foxhall and Dylan McGuinness contributed to this report.

jasper.scherer@chron.com

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