Congressional districts are altering, longtime leaders are heading for the exits and a preferred former mayor is attempting to unseat a sitting county choose from his personal get together.
The 2026 midterm election could seem far off, however the March main election the place events select their nominees for these races is already properly underway.
In non-presidential election years like 2026, members of Congress and and the Texas Home are all up for reelection — election cycles which can be typically referendums on the get together controlling the White Home and trigger its members to lose seats.
So-called midterm elections are additionally when Texas elects its governor and different statewide officeholders to four-year phrases. Most countywide places of work are on that very same poll, plus a portion of Bexar County’s judges and county commissioners, which serve staggered phrases.
In a state that’s overwhelmingly purple and a county that’s overwhelming blue, the first is usually the primary occasion, advancing many candidates who gained’t face a aggressive race in November.
However as Texas takes on an even bigger function within the battle for the management of the U.S. Home and Senate, each nationwide events can even be centered on the state’s March main, the place San Antonio voters will assist select the candidates for a number of the most hard-fought races within the nation.
With weeks left earlier than the Dec. 8 submitting deadline, the March 3 main is already poised to create extra change amongst Bexar County’s federal, state and native officers than any election in current reminiscence.
“You’re , probably, a brand new county choose, you’ll have a brand new district lawyer, you’ve gotten a few new congressmen, and as many as 4 or 5 new state Home members,” mentioned San Antonio political strategist Kelton Morgan, who usually works with Republicans. “That’s much more turnover than Bexar County often sees.”
On the similar time, the Trump administration’s push to shore up a razor-thin U.S. Home majority by redrawing Texas’ congressional districts this summer season has led to last-minute back-and-forth about whether or not the adjustments made have been authorized, even after the submitting interval opened.
On Friday the Supreme Court docket ordered Texas to proceed beneath the brand new maps for now, however it nonetheless hasn’t made a last choice on which of them would be the regulation of the land in 2026.
“This has been fairly the circus and so many dominoes haven’t even fallen,” mentioned Brielle Insler, a San Antonio-based political marketing consultant who usually works with progressive candidates and causes.
This record might be up to date periodically we get a clearer image of the panorama. However for now, listed here are the highest eight races the reporters and editors of the San Antonio Report are watching within the March 3 main.
1. Bexar County Choose — Democratic main
County judges aren’t topic to time period limits in Texas, and traditionally they’ve tended to stay round. That’s modified some lately, nonetheless, as formidable newcomers changed longtime incumbents, turning a bureaucratic function into extra of a political launchpad.
Bexar County appeared poised to observe that pattern when longtime County Choose Nelson Wolff retired in 2022, however in a three-way main with a number of earlier-career, extra partisan Democrats working, voters selected Peter Sakai.
The longtime district court docket choose greatest identified for his work on the Youngsters’s Court docket edged the others out by vowing to refocus the county’s restricted assets round core obligations like overseeing the courts, the jail and elections.
Now in his first reelection race, Sakai faces an uncommon problem from former Mayor Ron Nirenberg, a fellow Democrat who says the county’s chief government may tackle way more.
Sakai contends Nirenberg ought to have adopted by on plans to problem one in all Texas’ many Republican officeholders, as an alternative of making “a Dem vs. a Dem fray.”
The 2 males appeared to get alongside when Nirenberg was mayor, however frustration from the enterprise neighborhood about Sakai’s cautious strategy to a brand new downtown Spurs area might have cracked the window of alternative open simply as Nirenberg was terming out of workplace.
The county finally pulled by with its portion of the world funding, nonetheless, leaving a race that’s now extra about management types than true coverage variations.
Sakai has had three years to stockpile marketing campaign money with out the identical restrictive contribution limits as metropolis candidates. In the meantime Nirenberg has a PAC he can use to boost cash for this race — although its identify suggests greater eventual ambitions.
Apparently, the candidates’ outdated political consultants swapped sides for this race.
Pleasure probably ebbs on this race after the first, since Republicans haven’t gained a countywide workplace in Bexar County for greater than a decade. Their nominee Trish DeBerry took simply 39% of the vote in 2022.
2. Texas Home District 121 — Republican main
Republicans management a whopping 88 seats within the 150-member Texas Home, so a lot of the coverage disputes are with one another, not Democrats.
This 12 months the problems driving a wedge between Texas Republicans are a little bit totally different, having already nixed Democratic chairmanships and permitted a faculty voucher program final session. However Texas Home District 121 as soon as once more finds itself on the middle of a GOP proxy battle — making it prone to be some of the costly legislative primaries within the state.
State Rep. Marc LaHood (San Antonio) was one in all many profitable GOP insurgents in 2022, defeating a once-loyal Republican who bucked Gov. Greg Abbott’s faculty voucher plan and fell sufferer to a Texas conservative motion that’s been so profitable wiping out moderates in purple territory, it’s needed to search out new targets.
Such fights between extra business-centric and socially conservative Republicans have taken many shapes through the years, however now appear to coming right down to tort reform advocates, who wish to make it tougher to extract massive payouts from suing companies, versus trial legal professionals, who make their cash that manner.
LaHood, a felony protection lawyer, was a part of a bunch of legal professionals within the Home Republican Caucus — together with Home Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) — that bucked highly effective enterprise pursuits on their precedence authorized reform laws close to the tip of his first time period.
Now the deep-pocketed group Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), which already had beef with the conservative wing going into the session, has vowed to interchange the GOP lawmakers who stopped their momentum.
In the meantime trial legal professionals who benefitted from the transfer however usually give to Democrats are spending massive to assist their new allies within the GOP.
LaHood faces a main problem from David McArthur, a enterprise marketing consultant and alumnus of the George W. Bush White Home who needs to check whether or not there’s nonetheless a lane for a extra business-centric Republican within the outdated Joe Straus district.
McArthur is already getting massive assist from TLR’s unusually early TV adverts attacking LaHood, whereas a PAC aligned with trial legal professionals have been coming to the incumbent’s protection.
It’s unclear whether or not Abbott will get concerned this time, however LaHood stays standard with conservative teams and appears to have a brand new ally in Burrows, showing by his aspect at a San Antonio fundraiser this month.
The Northside state Home district has lengthy favored Republicans. Democrats preserve hoping it would swing the opposite manner if the GOP nominees saved getting extra conservative, however LaHood nonetheless gained by 5 proportion factors in 2024.
3. Bexar County DA — Democratic main
Democrats are beginning to pile into this race after District Lawyer Joe Gonzales (D) introduced plans to retire on the finish of his time period, and the most definitely successor took his identify out of competition simply earlier than the submitting interval opened.
Gonzales rode in with a category of progressive DAs elected throughout the nation in 2018, helped by a nationwide justice reform PAC that poured roughly $1 million into Gonzales’ race that 12 months.
It’s unclear whether or not that form of exterior cash nonetheless exists for such native races. However in a blue county, many candidates are nonetheless speaking about progressive justice insurance policies, whilst they search to distinguish themselves from a polarizing incumbent.
Amongst these campaigning for the Democratic nomination are prosecutors Oscar Salinas and Angelica Carrión Powers, and felony protection attorneys Veronica Legarreta and Shannon Locke.
Two higher-profile names, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) and former Fourth Court docket of Appeals Justice Luz Elena Chapa (D), are additionally each contemplating the race.
Republicans stay annoyed with the DA’s workplace in Bexar County, however after placing massive cash behind their nominee in 2022 and arising 10 proportion factors quick, the GOP main hasn’t drawn the identical curiosity.
4. U.S. Senate race — each Republican and Democratic primaries
Practically all of Texas’ statewide places of work are on the poll this 12 months, and all of them are longshots for Democrats in November.
Of these, nonetheless, the U.S. Senate race is getting a lot of the consideration as a result of nationwide Democrats looking for to flip a 53-seat Republican majority don’t have many higher choices of select from — senators serve staggered six-year phrases and the GOP incumbents up for reelection this cycle come from actually purple states.
In the meantime, nationwide Republicans are defending a whole lot of Senate seats up in 2026, and actually don’t wish to waste cash in a state as massive and costly as Texas.
Republican John Cornyn has held one in all Texas’ two U.S. Senate seats for greater than 20 years, and at one level appeared headed towards retirement after his bid to interchange longtime Majority Chief Mitch McConnell fell flat.
However then Lawyer Common Ken Paxton’s curiosity within the race alarmed the get together’s largest supporting PACs, whose leaders began brazenly worrying that his political baggage may trigger them issues defending the seat if he’s their nominee in November.
Regardless of Paxton’s extremely public affair and 2023 impeachment vote supported by roughly two-thirds of his GOP colleagues within the Texas Home, he’s now cleared of most authorized troubles and stays extremely influential amongst GOP main voters.
Whereas nationwide GOP cash is flowing to assist Cornyn, a 3rd candidate who hoped he’d step apart is now additionally working, additional complicating the matter.
U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Houston) was requested to not run by get together leaders, however is now on the market making the case that neither Cornyn nor Paxton can maintain this seat long-term in a altering state, and getting assist from a PAC that spent roughly $6.5 million on his behalf earlier than he’d even joined the race.
As for the Democrats, who haven’t gained a statewide race in Texas since 1994, hope springs everlasting and the concept of working in opposition to Paxton was so attractive that a number of candidates jumped into the Senate race this 12 months — messing up plans to unfold expertise throughout a slate of statewide races all up in 2026.
Proper now, prime contenders within the Democratic main embody former U.S. Rep Colin Allred (D-Dallas), an ex-NFL participant who raised massive cash for an unsuccessful race in opposition to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in 2024, and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Spherical Rock), a millennial seminarian with an enormous social media following.
Each fear they might be upstaged by U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas), whose outspoken criticism of President Donald Trump has made her standard with the bottom, however considerably of a wild card working statewide in Texas.
It as soon as appeared like this race may function a neighborhood candidate as properly, however U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) mentioned on the Texas Tribune Pageant this month he’s most definitely working for reelection to his safely blue U.S. Home seat as an alternative.
5. Texas Home District 125 — Democratic main
The San Antonio space’s Texas Home delegation is made up of largely longtime Democrats who face little opposition returning to Austin every session, whilst Republicans additional marginalize them within the legislative course of.
However this 12 months gives a uncommon opening for formidable newcomers, as state Rep. Ray Lopez (D-San Antonio) retires from a deep blue Westside seat.
The rising area of contenders to date contains Lopez’s former chief of workers, Donovon Rodriguez, and an SAISD academics’ union chief Adrian Reyna, amongst others who wish to see the get together battle again tougher in opposition to Republicans.
6. Texas’ thirty fifth Congressional District — Republican main
This summer season’s redistricting effort took this solidly blue Austin-to-San Antonio district and turned it into a possible GOP pickup on San Antonio’s Southeast aspect.
Doing so drew progressive incumbent Greg Casar (D-Austin) out the district and left him to compete for a extra Austin-centric seat as an alternative, whereas spurring plenty of curiosity amongst native Republicans who haven’t had many alternatives to maneuver up.
If the federal court docket’s Nov. 18 ruling stands and Texas’ new districts are thrown out, Casar says he’ll run right here once more, leaving a protracted record of Republicans to resolve whether or not the race remains to be winnable.
Conversely, if the Supreme Court docket decides the brand new maps can be utilized, the GOP area may develop even bigger, probably including Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) to the combination.
Proper now the Republican main contains state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio), former congressional staffer Josh Cortez, and, Carlos De La Cruz, the brother of U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, all of whom ran anticipating the district to stretch from Southeast San Antonio into three counties Trump gained in 2024.
Democrats have been on the fence about whether or not that new district could be aggressive for them, however Marine Corps veteran John Lira and former Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia are each working to offer Republicans a battle.
7. Texas’ twenty first Congressional District — Republican main
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Dripping Springs), simply probably the most outspoken conservative in San Antonio’s five-member congressional delegation, is working to interchange Paxton as Lawyer Common, and the race to interchange him as soon as appeared prefer it’d be a brutal GOP main.
The district contains a part of Northwest San Antonio, but additionally stretches as much as the Hill Nation to tug in a number of the most conservative elements of the state.
Underneath new boundaries, it might have given President Donald Trump 60.2% of its vote in 2024, just like the way it carried out beneath the prevailing traces.
There’s one native candidate within the combine, former Bexar GOP Vice Chair Kyle Sinclair, although Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) and Moody each thought of working.
Since then it’s drawn curiosity from a number of high-profile contenders prone to increase massive cash, together with Trey Trainor, a former chair of the Federal Elections Fee, and former MLB participant Mark Teixeira. Most Republicans now imagine it’s Teixeira’s to lose.
8. Texas Home District 118 — Republican main
This Southside state Home district was as soon as a blue stronghold earlier than Lujan flipped it for Republicans — one thing many within the get together believed nobody else may pull off.
In 2024, nonetheless, Trump really carried the district by a wider margin than Lujan, and now variety of candidates suppose they’ll maintain it as Lujan strikes over to run for Congress.
Apparently, these looking for the GOP nomination embody two party-switchers, private harm lawyer Desi Martinez and former state lawmaker Leo Pacheco, who as soon as represented the district as a Democrat.
There’s additionally a suppose tank scholar who labored on faculty vouchers, Jorge Borrego.
Democrats look prone to renominate their candidate from final cycle, Kristian Carranza, a longtime political operative who raised extra money than any first-time state Home candidate in her debut race.
Texas Home District 118 stays one in all only a handful of state legislative seats that’s thought of really aggressive in November.
It’s unclear whether or not Lujan would return for a rematch if the federal court docket’s Nov. 18 ruling stands and his congressional race is upended.
Additionally value a watch
Bexar County District clerk — Former Bexar Democratic Celebration Chair Monica Ramirez Alcántara is difficult an incumbent, Gloria Martinez, who gained the seat by defeating an incumbent Democrat in 2022. Alcántara has confronted ethics fines for delinquent marketing campaign finance stories, however her years of labor as get together chair has helped her rally help from many native elected officers.
Texas Home District 116 — If Martinez Fischer jumps into the District Lawyer race, it might open up a deep blue seat on the near-west to Northwest aspect.
Former state Rep. Diana Arévalo (D-San Antonio) mentioned she’d take into account working once more. Former District 8 Metropolis Council candidate Sakib Shaikh can also be wanting on the Democratic main.
Texas Home District 117 — Incumbent state Rep. Phil Cortez (D-San Antonio) faces a main challenger, Robert Mihara, who says he ought to have participated within the quorum break aimed toward slowing Texas Republicans’ redistricting efforts. It stays to be seen whether or not progressive exterior teams really feel the identical manner.
Texas twenty third Congressional District — U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) narrowly survived his 2024 main in opposition to YouTuber Brandon Herrera, who’s now working once more this 12 months.
Final election cycle, the first problem got here as Gonzales was going through main pushback from the state GOP, a few of which appears to have cooled off since then. Nevertheless, some political watchers imagine having Paxton on the poll within the high-profile U.S. Senate main may enhance different down-ballot insurgents like Herrera.
Texas’ twenty eighth Congressional District — This summer season’s redistricting effort eliminated the Bexar County portion of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Laredo) district, ostensibly making it extra pleasant to Republicans, and leaving this area with 4 congressional seats as an alternative of 5.
Republicans take into account this one in all their greatest pickup alternatives nationwide, however even beneath indictment, Cuellar has been unsinkable, and it’s unclear who the GOP will get by their main to run in opposition to him.
Texas Lawyer Common — Texas hasn’t had an open statewide place in a decade, till Paxton determined to run for U.S. Senate. A bunch of fascinating Republicans and Democrats have lined up for it and are value watching in March.
