Nationwide press, statewide political figures and even a documentary movie crew all have their eyes educated on a San Antonio mayoral race that would make town a beacon of the Democratic resistance — or set a brand new high-water mark for Texas Republicans’ inroads in traditionally blue territory.
Within the first spherical of a nonpartisan contest, quick-witted former congressional candidate Gina Ortiz Jones, 44, tapped into voters’ frustration with the early months of the Trump Administration, an strategy that helped her beat out — by far — an extended record of candidates with extra metropolis authorities expertise.
Left-leaning council members presently management 9 of San Antonio’s 10 council seats, and Jones’ 27% assist within the first spherical of voting made her the odds-on favourite to turn out to be town’s subsequent chief.
But days out from a June 7 runoff election through which a number of metropolis races have come right down to left-right matchups, political watchers say the competition is something however sewn up.
Jones is locked in a combat with Rolando Pablos, 57, an affable enterprise legal professional who’s been campaigning straight out of the nationwide GOP’s playbook, purposefully dropping the “Ortiz” from Jones’ title practically each time he will get behind a microphone and suggesting her navy file deserves further scrutiny.
Such a matchup must be fueling Democratic enthusiasm in a state the place Republicans management practically each different lever of energy — and simply six months in the past took management of the White Home and Congress, too.
But a fragmented native celebration, a broken Democratic model and a shocking rejection of Jones amongst some town’s close-knit political elite has some anxious that one of many state’s final blue strongholds may very well be in jeopardy.
All of it comes as a PAC with ties to Gov. Greg Abbott and San Antonio’s police union have been pouring in cash into the race for weeks on Pablos’ behalf — alarming teams on the left which are coming to Jones’ protection with growing urgency.
With many Democrats who favored different mayoral candidates nonetheless on the sidelines within the runoff, this week the LGBTQ+ Stonewall Democrats issued a frank plea for celebration unity to assist Jones, who can be town’s first lesbian mayor.
A letter from the group stated native officers with Democratic leanings owe the LGBTQ+ group their assist even “when the stakes turn out to be uncomfortable.”
“Proper now Gina Ortiz Jones is dealing with a well-funded Republican opponent with views that stand in direct opposition to the values we maintain expensive,” the Stonewall Democrats wrote. ” … Are you actually snug sitting out this race whereas a candidate with MAGA-aligned views strikes ahead unchecked?”
In a nod to the disunity, longtime Democratic Councilman John Braveness (D9), whose personal mayoral launch was interrupted by progressive activists calling for a ceasefire decision within the Israel-Hamas struggle, responded scathingly to being named within the letter, saying Stonewall Democrats “virtually chased” him away and that Jones “has zero character to get elected.”
This week the progressive Texas Organizing Undertaking and Annie’s Record have been scrambling to reframe the race round Pablos and his ties to unpopular GOP state leaders, and even the Texas Democratic Get together is getting concerned.
“We’ve obtained workforce members out right here knocking on doorways … we’re collaborating with our companions, we’re teaming up on some communications packages,” Texas Democratic Get together Chair Kendall Scudder stated in an interview after a marketing campaign rally with Jones at Jaime’s Place on Sunday, the place he and different Democrats sought to current a united entrance.
“We’re doing every thing that we are able to to attempt to guarantee that we’re holding this seat for the folks of San Antonio.”
‘All eyes on San Antonio’
In a nod to the rising curiosity within the race, this week the Jones marketing campaign stated the New York Instances and different nationwide media retailers began reaching out about their plans to cowl a contest with main implications for both candidate’s nationwide celebration.
Erin Covey, a nationwide analyst for the nonpartisan Cook dinner Political Report, stated it’s not unusual for races proper after a serious nationwide election to get outsized consideration as each events take a look at messages they might use within the subsequent midterm.
South Texas is excessive on each events’ political radars, as President Donald Trump flipped historically blue Starr and Webb counties in November.
The GOP even outperformed its 2020 end in Bexar County by about 5%, serving to Republican candidates flip a trio of seats on the 32-county Fourth Courtroom of Appeals and fueling additional hypothesis about historically blue Hispanic voters trending purple.
“[South Texas] is the place we’ve got seen essentially the most dramatic swings within the nation,” stated Covey, who famous {that a} pair of Democrat-held congressional seats there have already turn out to be the middle of the U.S. Home map in 2026.
Including to the intrigue, each mayoral candidates additionally convey some uncommon potential star energy to one of many first main elections after the GOP’s November wave.
Electing a Hispanic Republican mayor in a majority-Hispanic city middle would nearly definitely make Pablos an in a single day sensation amongst state and nationwide Republicans as they proceed to focus on their inroads with voters of shade.
In the meantime Jones is a rising Democratic voice in a purple state, the place her data of the federal coverage panorama — and talent to react shortly to the Trump Administration’s modifications on the marketing campaign path — is already setting her up as a counterweight to these in energy in Austin and Washington.
Each candidates had been supported within the first spherical by moneyed PACs with acknowledged objectives of constructing benches for his or her events’ futures, and a movie crew unrelated to both marketing campaign, Revision Information, already has 200 hours of footage for a documentary in regards to the race that it’s planning to air in early 2026.
“Democrats have clearly actually struggled in Texas over the previous a number of cycles, after saying time and again and again that they will make this a purple state,” Covey stated. “Having one other probably sturdy candidate in a higher-profile place helps with their bench-bench constructing long run.”
As Democrats’ former U.S. Senate candidate sized up the state of affairs in a current fundraising e-mail for Jones: “All eyes are on San Antonio’s mayoral race proper now.”
Republicans’ South Texas positive aspects have largely been attributed to Trump’s distinctive model, which performs higher than the typical GOP candidate. But when Pablos can show there’s a path for a Republican within the largest city middle up from the border, it should sign an entire sea-change for his celebration.
“There’s clearly numerous questions proper now about how a lot the [Republican Party] can do with out Trump on the poll, however we’ve got seen Republicans replicate his positive aspects with Hispanic voters down-ballot,” Covey stated. “It’ll be attention-grabbing to see, notably essentially the most closely Latino precincts, how they find yourself voting.”
A slender path for a conservative
Born in Mexico to oldsters he stated “sacrificed every thing” to convey his household to the U.S., Pablos went on to turn out to be a detailed ally of each Abbott and former Gov. Rick Perry and maintain quite a few high-level state management appointments.
As a prime financial growth adviser whereas serving as secretary of state — he developed a imaginative and prescient for the way authorities can assist companies thrive, plus a sharpened frustration on behalf of these lacking out.
“I traveled the world bringing funding right here, and I’ll do it for San Antonio. It’s not that tough,” he stated at a Might 6 debate, noting that in his travels, the San Antonio Spurs basketball workforce was typically the one factor folks knew in regards to the metropolis. “We’ve got the chance to be on the worldwide stage. We simply haven’t taken it.”
Whereas it’s not unusual for conservative candidates to make it to the runoff in San Antonio, that assist typically hits a ceiling in a head-to-head race, and Pablos initially deliberate to outrun that dynamic with a business-centric strategy that minimized partisanship.
“I need to be that unity candidate,” he instructed the San Antonio Report in an interview at his workplace practically a yr in the past. “I feel my story is similar to the story of these in Districts 1 by 7, and so despite the fact that I dwell on the North Facet, I’ve that crossover enchantment.”
Now in an uphill race, with two different runoffs on the poll within the metropolis’s extra conservative North Facet — a distinct path has opened.
After taking 17% within the first spherical, Pablos’ marketing campaign ran towards his base, selling outcomes of a push-poll spelling out how they would wish to redefine Jones in a runoff and dramatically shifting his tone.
Current advertisements from each Pablos’s marketing campaign and his PAC allies have accused Jones, who’s Filipina, of pretending to be Hispanic, supporting navy base closures, dodging the press and having her cellphone taken away from her in a debate.
At a current gathering of the Republican Membership of Bexar County at Chester’s Hamburgers, the Trumpian metamorphosis was on full show.
To a crowd of celebration activists, he known as Jones a “woke progressive” and a twice-rejected congressional candidate who swoops in from Washington D.C. simply to run for workplace. He stated her tenure as Below Secretary of the Air Pressure below the Biden Administration led to low recruitment numbers, and he leaned into his relationships with state GOP leaders, noting his plans to satisfy with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick later within the week.
“She’s attempting to tie Greg Abbott round my neck, saying how I’m Greg Abbott’s puppet,” Pablos instructed the gang. “All of these items are simply serving to my base.”
Relatively than shirking partisan labels, the conservative metropolis candidates have all embraced the narrative that Democrats’ leftward march is driving voters their means, with Pablos urging Republicans to “take this metropolis again” and “fight the virus that’s at Metropolis Corridor.”
San Antonio metropolis leaders have largely steered away from among the progressive concepts that drove voters away in different massive Texas cities, reminiscent of calls to defund the police.
However in an indication of shifting political sands, even some progressives have sought distance from these efforts this yr — and two council candidates who’ve run earlier than as Democrats rejected their county celebration’s endorsements.
Pablos’ pitch at Chester’s was that he’s choosing up supporters proper and left, actually.
“That’s how scared everyone actually is of my opponent,” Pablos stated. “It will be a travesty to have this woman run our metropolis.”
An outsider candidate?
In two previous runs for Congress, Jones’ navy file and compelling private story made her right into a nationwide star able to pulling hundreds of thousands in particular person and PAC {dollars}.
However whereas she’s netted an extended record of endorsements from previous mayors, state and federal lawmakers and council members within the mayoral race, a variety of town’s enterprise and political elites are selecting to remain out of a transparent distinction election.
By the use of clarification, some are sounding alarms that it’s Jones, not Pablos, who may upend San Antonio’s close-knit and largely bipartisan native political scene.
The daughter of a single mom who emigrated from the Philippines, Jones has caught to a liberal ideology rooted in difficult private experiences.
Her household struggled with housing insecurity and he or she attended a few of San Antonio’s lowest-performing faculties on the West Facet, but an ROTC scholarship took her to Boston Faculty then Iraq as a member of the U.S. Air Pressure, the place leaders selected her for development to the navy’s highest ranks.
Since returning dwelling from her newest publish as Below Secretary of the Air Pressure, Jones has been assembly with leaders from Centro San Antonio, city-owned utilities SAWS and CPS Power, enterprise teams, VIA Metropolitan Transit, Brooks Metropolis Base and others — impressing many as she ready for a transition to native authorities.
However Jones’ common governing perspective hasn’t all the time lined up with town’s energy constructions, complicating her efforts whereas campaigning throughout dozens of candidate boards.
Maybe most notably, Jones got here into the race railing in opposition to a $4 billion downtown redevelopment challenge often called Undertaking Marvel, which she framed as a handout for Spurs homeowners and a transparency failure for metropolis leaders engaged on it behind closed doorways.
She’s known as for town to put money into folks as an alternative of tasks by expanded Pre-Ok packages, job coaching and reasonably priced housing.
Recalling her household of 4 sharing one queen-sized mattress when she was a toddler, Jones stated that metropolis cash can be higher spent on schooling and workforce packages, noting, “we must be considerate and guarantee that our downtown doesn’t go the best way of Austin, which is only a place that wealthy folks dwell.”
Although she’s taken a extra open-minded strategy to Marvel in current weeks, lots of the metropolis’s enterprise pursuits have flocked to Pablos, who navigates their circles with confidence after a few years in native enterprise teams, together with a stint chairing the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
This week the San Antonio Categorical-Information editorial board, plus former San Antonio Report editor Robert Rivard, former Democratic state Senator Leticia Van de Putte, who owns a authorities consulting agency, all backed Pablos — noting his enterprise expertise and imaginative and prescient for financial growth.
Whereas it’s unclear how a lot insiders’ opinions matter within the race, a now shocking variety of them are sounding open to a candidate whose conservative background would possible be the largest basic change San Antonio politics has seen in a few years.
Leaning on grassroots assist
Amongst Jones’ supporters, most consider her deeply progressive values are what have made her so fashionable with the Democratic everyman and can carry her by an election in a metropolis that’s nonetheless deeply blue.
“I feel it’s Gina’s race to lose. She’s obtained the assist of numerous grassroots-type people which are behind her, myself included,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar stated at Sunday’s rally.
“She’s obtained numerous the values that I worth. She’s a veteran who climbed the ranks, labored her means all the best way as much as the highest ranges of the Air Pressure, and by no means forgot the place she got here from.”
Certainly, Jones was a prime fundraiser in a area that included many left-leaning candidates, and he or she stood out in debates by channeling frustration about Trump’s closeness to billionaire Elon Musk and the eroding respect of international allies.
Requested at a Feb. 22 discussion board on the East Facet whether or not they may see themselves agreeing with any points of the Trump administration, Jones was one of many solely candidates to present a convincing no, drawing clear appreciation from the viewers.
“Trump and his insurance policies are a risk to our democracy,” Jones instructed the gathering at Higher Love Missionary Baptist Church. ” … I’ve served our nation everywhere in the world. I do know the significance of American management. We’re solely capable of lead primarily based on the credibility of our phrase and our actions.”
“We’re much less credible when we’ve got an individual main our nation implementing insurance policies which are there to complement himself and people who assist him.”
Whereas a few of that preliminary backlash to President Donald Trump’s first months in workplace has quieted, many consider Pablos’ closeness with GOP leaders nonetheless must be a enough anchor in San Antonio.
Abbott and different Texas Republicans have sought to restrict cities’ talents to control themselves, outlawed practically all abortions and DEI efforts and undermined public faculties — and given the possibility to face as much as his celebration bosses in previous roles, Jones says, Pablos hasn’t completed it.
Throughout his time as secretary of state Pablos was sued by the League of Ladies Voters and NAACP for participating in actions that they stated may result in voter intimidation, Jones stated at a KLRN debate.
“The Trump voter fee was asking for that non-public voter info…he was keen to do it, different Republican Secretaries of State stated no, and a Texas District choose needed to order him to not share that info,” Jones stated.
After assembly with each mayoral hopefuls this month, the highly effective group group COPS/Metro raised issues about Pablos’ contrasting imaginative and prescient for financial growth in a metropolis that’s chosen to speculate vital public cash in coaching residents for better-paying jobs.
“He held up as issues that must be preserved: low-wage jobs within the tourism business,” COPS/Metro board member Sonia Rodriguez stated in an interview. “Don’t get us incorrect, there’ll all the time be that section that’s necessary for town, however that shouldn’t be the muse for the financial growth.”
On Monday, Jones huddled on the South Facet with longtime organizers together with civil rights activist Rosie Castro, who dismissed criticism from the “powers that be” who she stated would bend over backwards to guard tasks they personally profit from — like Undertaking Marvel.
Castro additionally pointedly stated it wasn’t shocking to see one other feminine candidate below assault.
“We’re watching, on a nationwide stage and on a state stage, this type of pushback on and concern of ladies and girls management,” Castro stated. “It’s loopy.”
Nonetheless Castro, who devoted her life to progressive activism, stated she can be “saddened” if San Antonio elected a Republican to guide town by the following 4 years, after many years of organizing from so many individuals swept Democrat after Democrat into workplace.
“We’ve prided ourselves in being a Democratic metropolis, and I feel that it would actually injure that sense,” she stated. “I don’t need to see that occur.”
Acknowledging the shifting narrative, Jones instructed the Categorical-Information not too long ago that her opponent had efficiently labeled her as chilly and robotic, which isn’t how she views herself. She stated her “resting bitch face” generally provides folks the incorrect impression, however she hoped the race would hinge on extra substantive coverage variations.
With 5 days left in early voting earlier than election day on June 7, Jones and her supporters are hoping Pablos’ kitchen-sink technique doesn’t overpower the larger political image.
“It’s me or Greg Abbott, that’s what this comes right down to, proper?” she instructed the gathering of roughly 100 folks at Jaime’s Place on a scorching Memorial Day weekend. “So when people are like, ‘What about this? What about that?’ Let’s hold the principle factor, the principle factor.”
