Going into Saturday’s runoffs, conservatives who controlled just one seat on the 10-member City Council were excited about their prospects in several Northside runoffs — as well as a possible mayor with ties to state GOP leaders.

When the dust settled, however, they’d picked up just one council seat, while candidates with Democratic backgrounds had a huge showing overall, adding to their ranks a progressive Mayor-elect Gina Ortiz Jones, plus a 24-year-old activist in District 6 and the daughter of a local civil rights icon in District 8.

By the end of the night Jones, the Democratic National Committee, the Texas Democratic Party and the Democratic Mayors Association were all taking victory laps — while conservative mayoral hopeful Rolando Pablos said the results could only be interpreted to mean that “San Antonio continues to be a blue city.”

As Republicans and Democrats each prepare to make Texas a key part of their national political strategy for the upcoming midterm election, Saturday’s final results provide many interesting insights about local elections and beyond.

National Republicans are already targeting two Democrat-held congressional seats in South Texas, including U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Laredo) 28th Congressional District, which stretches up to Bexar County, and President Donald Trump now wants Texas to create two additional GOP-friendly seats ahead of that election.

At the same time, national Democrats who’ve been trying to turn Texas blue for years are once again pouring money into the state — for an effort the Texas Majority PAC’s leaders say runs solidly through San Antonio.

Now that San Antonio’s ballots have been counted, Democrats are feeling enthusiastic about what they can accomplish in what’s already expected to be a good year for their party. Republicans, meanwhile, are rethinking their strategy for running in blue territory.

“There’s no doubt that this is a rough cycle for Republicans and a good cycle for Democrats,” said Texas Majority PAC’s director Katherine Fischer, who was involved with progressive groups helping Jones. “It doesn’t mean we should take any of that for granted, but the conditions are in our favor based on how these races have turned out so far.”

Here are five takeaways from San Antonio’s June 7 runoffs.

1. Pablos underperformed past conservatives

Most Republicans strategists agree there’s a very narrow path for a conservative mayoral hopeful in San Antonio, but even with unusual amounts of outside money coming in to help this year, Pablos lost by 8.6 percentage points.

That’s compared to the 2.2 percentage point gap between Mayor Ron Nirenberg and conservative challenger Greg Brockhouse in 2019.

What happened?

Brockhouse attracted a much broader coalition of supporters across the city’s East, South and West sides, while Pablos’ campaign carried only the city’s reddest territory in Districts 9 and 10.

“Brockhouse won District 4, he nearly won District 3, he was close in District 2, and he won his own council district, District 6, by a pretty large margin,” said San Antonio political strategist Bert Santibañez, who worked on Nirenberg’s races. “Pablos didn’t make any headway on the South Side and and definitely not on the East Side.”

In an interview nearly a year ago, Pablos suggested that his immigrant story and ability to speak Spanish gave him unique appeal in Districts 1 though 7. But after advancing to a runoff with other Northside races on the ballot, Pablos and council candidates in Districts 1, 8 and 9 focused instead on turning out their base.

“You can’t count on the North Side alone,” Brockhouse said. “That’s not going to get you there.”

Brockhouse theorized that Pablos’s moderate politics and ability to appeal to voters in blue territory ultimately weren’t put to use well enough in a state where nearly all GOP strategists win races by relying solely on their party’s voters.

“If you just drew what you would want the perfect Republican to look like, to try to win in predominantly blue cities, it would be Rolando Pablos,” Brockhouse said. “But Republicans are coming into this battle already down 15 [percentage] points.”

Pablos’ campaign consultant Justin Hollis did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story.

2. Jones held her own in red territory

While Pablos hoped to run up the score on the North Side, Jones’ campaign proved that even San Antonio’s reddest territory isn’t a monolith.

“For most political observers locally, the knee-jerk assumption is that the North Side is solidly red, but in recent elections, both [former President Joe] Biden and [Democrats’ 2022 U.S. Senate candidate] Colin Allred won County Commissioner Precinct 3,” Santibañez said.

While Jones’ didn’t carry the Northside districts, her performance was better than expected for a low-interest municipal election.

She took 41% of the vote in District 9 and 46% of the vote in District 10.

“Gina held her own on the North Side,” Santibañez said.

Brockhouse agreed, suggesting those numbers were further evidence Republicans need to expand their outreach into other parts of the city.

“We’re getting marginalized here,” he said. “We need to get the hell out of the Northside mentality.”

One place Jones didn’t perform as well as recent left-leaning candidates was in the wealthy suburbs.

“In District 10 she did surprisingly well, but she didn’t win those Oak Park, Alamo Heights precincts that Allred and Nirenberg won,” Santibañez said.

3. As moderates departed, highly partisan races shaped up

As four centrist council members who ran for mayor left open seats in Districts 4, 6, 8 and 9, the crowded races to replace them largely came down to matchups between the most clear left-leaning and right-leaning candidates.

While many candidates and political watchers have bemoaned the polarization of nonpartisan races this cycle, voters preferred candidates who were clear about their partisan ideology.

Jones took a commanding lead in the first round with one of the most progressive resumes of any of the major candidates, while Pablos said his connections to Gov. Greg Abbott helped with his base.

As some left-leaning council candidates sought to shirk party labels, Jones wound up taking more votes in District 9 than left-leaning council hopeful Angi Taylor Aramburu, who declined local Democrats’ endorsement.

“They weren’t fooling anyone,” Santibañez said of the candidates still trying to run nonpartisan races. “In these partisan times, whether you’re a progressive or conservative, just state your case.”

Fischer agreed, saying that from a strategist’s perspective, it’s smart politics.

“We talk a lot about we shouldn’t make things so partisan, but if you’re running a campaign, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest you should, actually,” she said.

The partisan matchups also drew far more voter interest than crowded races in the first round of voting.

Just over 102,000 ballots were cast in the May 3 race — about 12% of the city’s roughly 840,000 registered voters. In the runoff, roughly 143,000 ballots were cast, just shy of 17% turnout.

4. Democrats feel enthused while Republicans regroup

As both parties gear up to make Texas a major part of their national political strategy, Fischer said the Texas Majority PAC is doubling down on Bexar County, where they see a high potential to turn out more Democrats in major elections.

They plan to spend about $3 million in the 2026 election, shoring up party infrastructure and collaborating with outside groups.

Reflecting on the mayor race, Fischer said that when big money was coming in for Pablos, an array of outside groups including the Texas Organizing Project, Annie’s List and the national Fields of Change PAC were able to use resources efficiently to help Jones by dividing up the work.

“It would have been terrible to lose that race,” she said. “A lot of these people have just worked together for years, we worked together on the coordinated campaign last cycle, so we built some coordination muscle in 2024 that felt much easier to pick up.”

Meanwhile, Brockhouse said Republicans who’d hoped their South Texas success in the November election was stretching up to Bexar County had gravely miscalculated.

The message they’ve found success with in South Texas hasn’t translated here, he said, and after years of losses, the party lacks the data and infrastructure needed to be successful.

“We’re in a lot of trouble,” Brockhouse said. “Throughout South Texas, Trump and everybody else, they’re, they’re steamrolling Democrats. But in Bexar County, we can’t even be competitive in today’s world? An eight-point loss is a butt-kicking.”

5. State GOP leaders are dragging others down

Public polling indicates Abbott and Texas GOP leaders are very unpopular in San Antonio, and Democrats and Republicans agreed that state leaders were an anchor to conservative candidates in nonpartisan municipal races this year.

After the election Jones’ pollster said a key to their success was emphasizing Pablos’ ties to Abbott, who appointed him Texas’ Secretary of State. Jones’s campaign stressed to voters that Pablos “would sell out San Antonio to the corporate interests funding his campaign” and “wouldn’t stand up to Abbott and Trump defunding essential programs San Antonio relies on.”

Brockhouse agreed that in a citywide race, Pablos needed to steer clear of the larger Republican brand.

“Greg Abbott is completely disliked in San Antonio, and I think the Bexar County Republican Party made some errors adopting this and turning it into Republican versus Democrat,” he said.