“All eyes on San Antonio”: Democratic disunity, GOP push turn mayor’s race into a political battleground

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National press, statewide political figures and even a documentary film crew all have their eyes trained on a San Antonio mayoral race that could make the city a beacon of the Democratic resistance — or set a new high-water mark for Texas Republicans’ inroads in historically blue territory.

In the first round 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 approach that helped her beat out — by far — a long list of candidates with more city government experience.

Left-leaning council members currently control nine of San Antonio’s 10 council seats, and Jones’ 27% support in the first round of voting made her the odds-on favorite to become the city’s next leader.

Yet days out from a Saturday runoff election in which several city races have come down to left-right matchups, political watchers say the contest is anything but sewn up.

Jones is locked in a fight with Rolando Pablos, 57, an affable business attorney who’s been campaigning straight out of the national GOP’s playbook, purposefully dropping the “Ortiz” from Jones’ name nearly every time he gets behind a microphone and suggesting her military record deserves additional scrutiny.

Such a matchup should be fueling Democratic enthusiasm in a state where Republicans control nearly every other lever of power — and just six months ago took control of the White House and Congress, too.

Yet a fragmented local party, a damaged Democratic brand and a surprising rejection of Jones among some of the city’s close-knit political elite have some worried that one of the state’s last blue strongholds could be in jeopardy.

It all comes as a PAC with ties to Gov. Greg Abbott and San Antonio’s police union have been pouring money into the race for weeks on Pablos’ behalf — alarming groups on the left that are coming to Jones’ defense with increasing urgency.

With many Democrats who favored other mayoral candidates still on the sidelines in the runoff, this week the LGBTQ+ Stonewall Democrats issued a frank plea for party unity to help Jones, who would be the city’s first lesbian mayor.

A letter from the group said local officials with Democratic leanings owe the LGBTQ+ community their support even “when the stakes become uncomfortable.”

“Right now Gina Ortiz Jones is facing a well-funded Republican opponent with views that stand in direct opposition to the values we hold dear,” the Stonewall Democrats wrote. ” … Are you truly comfortable sitting out this race while a candidate with MAGA-aligned views moves forward unchecked?”

In a nod to the disunity, longtime Democratic Councilman John Courage (D9), whose own mayoral launch was interrupted by progressive activists calling for a ceasefire resolution in the Israel-Hamas war, responded scathingly to being named in the letter, saying Stonewall Democrats “practically chased” him away and that Jones “has zero personality to get elected.”

This week the progressive Texas Organizing Project and Annie’s List have been scrambling to reframe the race around Pablos and his ties to unpopular GOP state leaders, and even the Texas Democratic Party is getting involved.

“We’ve got team members out here knocking on doors … we’re collaborating with our partners, we’re teaming up on some communications programs,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said after a campaign rally with Jones at Jaime’s Place on Sunday, where he and other Democrats sought to present a united front.

“We’re doing everything that we can to try to make sure that we’re holding this seat for the people of San Antonio.”

‘All eyes on San Antonio’

In a nod to the growing interest in the race, this week the Jones campaign said the New York Times and other national media outlets started reaching out about their plans to cover a contest with major implications for either candidate’s national party.

Erin Covey, a national analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said it’s not uncommon for races right after a major national election to get outsized attention as both parties test messages they could use in the next midterm.

South Texas is high on both parties’ political radars, as President Donald Trump flipped traditionally blue Starr and Webb counties in November.

The GOP even outperformed its 2020 finish in Bexar County by about 5%, helping Republican candidates flip a trio of seats on the 32-county Fourth Court of Appeals and fueling further speculation about traditionally blue Hispanic voters trending red.

“[South Texas] is where we have seen the most dramatic swings in the country,” said Covey, who noted that a pair of Democrat-held congressional seats there have already become the center of the U.S. House map in 2026.

Adding to the intrigue, both mayoral candidates also bring some unusual potential star power to one of the first major elections after the GOP’s November wave.

Electing a Hispanic Republican mayor in a majority-Hispanic urban center would almost certainly make Pablos an overnight sensation among state and national Republicans as they continue to highlight their inroads with voters of color.

Meanwhile Jones is a rising Democratic voice in a red state, where her knowledge of the federal policy landscape — and ability to react quickly to the Trump Administration’s changes on the campaign trail — is already setting her up as a counterweight to those in power in Austin and Washington.

Both candidates were supported in the first round by moneyed PACs with stated goals of building benches for their parties’ futures, and a film crew unrelated to either campaign, Revision News, already has 200 hours of footage for a documentary about the race that it’s planning to air in early 2026.

“Democrats have obviously really struggled in Texas over the past several cycles, after saying time and time and again that they can make this a purple state,” Covey said. “Having another potentially strong candidate in a higher-profile position helps with their bench-building long term.”

As Democrats’ former U.S. Senate candidate sized up the situation in a recent fundraising email for Jones: “All eyes are on San Antonio’s mayoral race right now.”

Republicans’ South Texas gains have largely been attributed to Trump’s unique brand, which performs better than the average GOP candidate. But if Pablos can prove there’s a path for a Republican in the largest urban center up from the border, it will signal a complete sea-change for his party.

“There’s obviously a lot of questions right now about how much the [Republican Party] can do without Trump on the ballot, but we have seen Republicans replicate his gains with Hispanic voters down-ballot,” Covey said. “It’ll be interesting to see, particularly the most heavily Latino precincts, how they end up voting.”

A narrow path for a conservative

Born in Mexico to parents who “sacrificed everything” to bring his family to the U.S., Pablos went on to become a close ally of both Abbott and former Gov. Rick Perry and hold numerous high-level state leadership appointments.

As a top economic development adviser while serving as secretary of state, Pablos developed a vision for how government can help businesses thrive, plus a sharpened frustration on behalf of those missing out.

“I traveled the world bringing investment here, and I will do it for San Antonio. It’s not that hard,” he said at a May 6 debate, noting that in his travels, the San Antonio Spurs basketball team was often the only thing people knew about the city.

“We have the opportunity to be on the global stage. We just haven’t taken it.”

While it’s not uncommon for conservative candidates to make runoffs in San Antonio, that support often hits a ceiling in a head-to-head race, and Pablos originally planned to outrun that dynamic with a business-centric approach that minimized partisanship.

“I want to be that unity candidate,” he told the San Antonio Report in an interview at his office nearly a year ago. “I think my story is very similar to the story of those in Districts 1 through 7, and so even though I live on the North Side, I have that crossover appeal.”

Now in an uphill race, with two other runoffs on the ballot in the city’s more conservative North Side — a different path has opened.

After taking 17% in the first round, Pablos’ campaign ran toward his base, promoting results of a push-poll that spelled out how they would need to redefine Jones in a runoff and dramatically shifting his tone.

Recent ads from both Pablos’ campaign and his PAC allies have accused Jones, who is Filipina, of pretending to be Hispanic, supporting military base closures, dodging the press and having her cell phone taken away from her in a debate.

At a recent Republican Club of Bexar County gathering at Chester’s Hamburgers, the Trumpian metamorphosis was on full display.

To a crowd of party activists, he called Jones a “woke progressive” and a twice-rejected congressional candidate who swoops in from Washington D.C. just to run for office. He said her tenure as Under Secretary of the Air Force under the Biden Administration led to low recruitment numbers, and he leaned into his relationships with state GOP leaders, noting his plans to meet with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick later in the week.

“She’s trying to tie Greg Abbott around my neck, saying how I’m Greg Abbott’s puppet,” Pablos told the crowd. “All of these things are just helping my base.”

Rather than shirking partisan labels, the conservative city candidates have all embraced the narrative that Democrats’ leftward march is driving voters their way, with Pablos urging Republicans to “take this city back” and “combat the virus that is at City Hall.”

San Antonio city leaders have largely steered away from some of the progressive ideas that drove voters away in other big Texas cities, such as calls to defund the police.

But in a sign of shifting political sands, even some progressives have sought distance from those efforts this year — and two council candidates who’ve run before as Democrats rejected their county party’s endorsements.

Pablos’ pitch at Chester’s was that he’s picking up supporters right and left, literally.

“That’s how scared everybody really is of my opponent,” Pablos said. “It would be a travesty to have this lady run our city.”

An outsider candidate?

In two past runs for Congress, Jones’ military record and compelling personal story made her into a national star capable of pulling millions in individual and PAC dollars.

But while she’s netted a long list of endorsements from past mayors, state and federal lawmakers and council members in the mayoral race, a number of the city’s business and political elites are choosing to stay out of a clear contrast election.

By way of explanation, some are sounding alarms that it’s Jones, not Pablos, who could upend San Antonio’s close-knit and largely bipartisan local political scene.

The daughter of a single mother who emigrated from the Philippines, Jones has stuck to a liberal ideology rooted in challenging personal experiences.

Her family struggled with housing insecurity and she attended some of San Antonio’s lowest-performing schools on the West Side, yet an ROTC scholarship took her to Boston College then Iraq as a member of the U.S. Air Force, where leaders chose her for advancement to the military’s highest ranks.

Since returning home from her latest post as Under Secretary of the Air Force, Jones has been meeting with leaders from Centro San Antonio, city-owned utilities SAWS and CPS Energy, business groups, VIA Metropolitan Transit, Brooks City Base and others — impressing many as she prepared for a transition to local government.

But Jones’ general governing perspective hasn’t always lined up with the city’s power structures, complicating her efforts while campaigning across dozens of candidate forums.

Perhaps most notably, Jones came into the race railing against a $4 billion downtown redevelopment project known as Project Marvel, which she framed as a handout for Spurs owners and a transparency failure for city leaders working on it behind closed doors.

She’s called for the city to invest in people instead of projects through expanded Pre-K programs, job training and affordable housing.

Recalling her family of four sharing one queen-sized bed when she was a child, Jones said that city money would be better spent on education and workforce programs, noting, “we need to be thoughtful and make sure that our downtown doesn’t go the way of Austin, which is just a place that rich people live.”

Though she’s taken a more open-minded approach to Marvel in recent weeks, many of the city’s business interests have flocked to Pablos, who navigates their circles with confidence after many years in local business groups, including a stint chairing the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

This week the San Antonio Express-News editorial board, plus former San Antonio Report editor Robert Rivard and former Democratic state Senator Leticia Van de Putte, who owns a government consulting firm, all backed Pablos — noting his business experience and vision for economic development.

While it’s unclear how much insiders’ opinions matter in the race, a now-surprising number of them are sounding open to a candidate whose conservative background would likely be the biggest fundamental change San Antonio politics has seen in many years.

Leaning on grassroots support

Among Jones’ supporters, most believe her deeply progressive values are what have made her so popular with the Democratic everyman and will carry her through an election in a city that’s still deeply blue.

“I think it’s Gina’s race to lose. She’s got the support of a lot of grassroots-type folks that are behind her, myself included,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at Sunday’s rally.

“She’s got a lot of the values that I value. She’s a veteran who climbed the ranks, worked her way all the way up to the top levels of the Air Force, and never forgot where she came from.”

Indeed, Jones was a top fundraiser in a field that included many left-leaning candidates, and she stood out in debates by channeling frustration about Trump’s closeness to billionaire Elon Musk and the eroding respect of foreign allies.

Asked at a Feb. 22 forum on the East Side whether they could see themselves agreeing with any aspects of the Trump administration, Jones was one of the only candidates to give a resounding no, drawing clear appreciation from the audience.

“Trump and his policies are a threat to our democracy,” Jones told the gathering at Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church. “I have served our country all over the world. I know the importance of American leadership. We are only able to lead based on the credibility of our word and our actions.”

“We are less credible when we have a person leading our country implementing policies that are there to enrich himself and those that support him.”

While some of that initial backlash to President Donald Trump’s first months in office has quieted, many believe Pablos’ closeness with GOP leaders still ought to be a sufficient anchor in San Antonio.

Abbott and other Texas Republicans have sought to limit cities’ abilities to govern themselves, outlawed nearly all abortions and DEI efforts and undermined public schools — and given the chance to stand up to his party bosses in past roles, Jones says, Pablos hasn’t done it.

During his time as secretary of state Pablos was sued by the League of Women Voters and NAACP for engaging in activities that they said could lead to voter intimidation, Jones said at a KLRN debate.

“The Trump voter commission was asking for that personal voter information — … he was willing to do it, other Republican Secretaries of State said no, and a Texas District judge had to order him not to share that information,” Jones said.

After meeting with both mayoral hopefuls this month, the powerful community group COPS/Metro raised concerns about Pablos’ contrasting vision for economic development in a city that’s chosen to invest significant public money in training residents for better-paying jobs.

“He held up as things that need to be preserved: low-wage jobs in the tourism industry,” COPS/Metro board member Sonia Rodriguez said in an interview. “Don’t get us wrong, there will always be that segment that’s important for the city, but that should not be the foundation for the economic development.”

On Monday, Jones huddled on the South Side with longtime organizers including civil rights activist Rosie Castro, who dismissed criticism from the “powers that be” who she said would bend over backwards to protect projects they personally benefit from — like Project Marvel.

Castro also pointedly said it wasn’t surprising to see another female candidate under attack.

“We’re watching, on a national level and on a state level, this kind of pushback on and fear of women and women leadership,” Castro said. “It’s crazy.”

Still Castro, who dedicated her life to progressive activism, said she would be “saddened” if San Antonio elected a Republican to lead the city through the next four years after decades of organizing from so many people swept Democrat after Democrat into office.

“We’ve prided ourselves in being a Democratic city, and I think that it might really injure that sense,” she said. “I don’t want to see that happen.”

Acknowledging the shifting narrative, Jones told the Express-News recently that her opponent had successfully labeled her as cold and robotic, which isn’t how she views herself. She said her “resting bitch face” sometimes gives people the wrong impression, but she hoped the race would hinge on more substantive policy differences.

Ahead of Saturday's election, Jones and her supporters are hoping Pablos’ kitchen-sink strategy doesn’t overpower the bigger political picture.

“It’s me or Greg Abbott, that’s what this comes down to, right?” she told the gathering of roughly 100 people at Jaime’s Place on a hot Memorial Day weekend. “So when folks are like, ‘What about this? What about that?’ Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing.”

Disclosure: Brooks City Base, CPS Energy, New York Times and Via Metropolitan Transit have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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