The race to become San Antonio’s next mayor is headed toward a partisan showdown between one candidate loved by national Democratic Party leaders and another who has close ties to the Republicans who control every lever of power in Texas state government.
With all vote centers counted, former Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones and former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos were leading a field of 27 candidates, taking 27.2% and 16.6% respectively.
Since no candidate took at least 50% of the vote, Jones and Pablos will advance to a June 7 runoff.
Jones has ties to major Democratic donors and lawmakers from two high-profile congressional races she narrowly lost. Many of those allies returned to help her in the mayoral race.
“It feels really good,” Jones said in an interview along the Flambeau Parade route Saturday night, where supporters high-fived her and stopped to take photos with the potential next mayor.
“This whole team has worked very hard and it was important for me to just kind of cherish this moment with them, because we know the work is not done,” she said before heading into Knockout Sports Bar with her campaign team.
“We’ve got 30 ahead of us to continue to show voters what I look forward to doing, in concert with the rest of the City Council, to make sure we move our city forward.”
Pablos, who was appointed to his secretary of state role by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, had help in the race from a PAC run by the governor’s former political director.
From a watch party at Drury La Cantera’s old Spanish ballroom, Pablos acknowledged that electing a candidate with conservative background would be a major switch for blue San Antonio.
“I want to thank the people of San Antonio who spoke that they want change,” he said. “Our campaign has been based on change. We want to make sure that we take San Antonio in a completely different direction.”
Historically, San Antonio has shown preference for candidates with council experience. The city has elected just one mayor without it in 70 years — Phil Hardberger — making the dominance of City Hall outsiders in this race highly unusual.
Altamirano had the backing of former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, and between his campaign and supporting PAC, called SA Future, a total of about $465,000 was spent on his behalf in the past month.
In his concession speech Saturday night, Altamirano thanked Wolff for believing in him, and suggested his political career might just be getting started.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m 35 years old, time is on my side,” said Altamirano, who started his career working in Democratic politics.
Pelaez, an attorney from the Northwest side, recently loaned his campaign more than $300,000 and has been getting help from an outside group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors.
Rocha Garcia, on the other hand, raised and spent very little on the race, relying on volunteer campaign help. She’s represented District 4 since 2021 and long been viewed as a potential rising star — if not for the fact that her Southwest district has some of the city’s lowest voter turnout.
Final results:
Former Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones 27.2%
Former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos: 16.61%
Tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano 12.05%
Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4) 9.89%
Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8) 7.31%
Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) 6.66%
Councilman John Courage (D9) 5.56%
Former Councilman Clayton Perry: 5.51%
An unusually crowded race
Mayor Ron Nirenberg termed out this year after eight years in the role, and lots of local political talent had been waiting for such an opportunity this year.
At the same time, Democrats and Republicans at the state and national level also set their sights on installing one of their own to lead a city they say has tremendous significance in their party’s future.
Texas’ big city mayors have steadily become less progressive as traditional liberal incumbents termed out, and all eyes will be on San Antonio as Jones and Pablos face off in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan race.
“A majority of the voters in an election with a fairly low turnout chose candidates who will not be in the runoff,” said Nirenberg’s chief of staff and political adviser Zack Lyke. “Both campaigns will need new strategies to make the case that they understand the job and are ready to hit the ground running.”
Jones is an outspoken progressive who would be the city’s first openly gay mayor. In the first round of the mayoral race she benefited from spending by a national PAC seeking to build a bench of future leaders in state and local races.
“I love how progressive she is, I love that she’s a woman, I love that she served in the military,” said Kendall Cantor, a 28-year-old nurse who stopped Jones at the parade to say she’d voted for her. “I want to keep San Antonio blue.”
If Pablos wins, it would be a major power shift in an overwhelmingly blue city.
Republicans currently control just one out of 10 San Antonio City Council seats, and Pablos has laid plans for a conservative approach to city government, including a sunset commission to reduce the size of city government and a think tank to advise on the city’s municipally owned utilities.
“San Antonio now has a clear choice, and I am confident they will reject Gina Jones for what she represents: more of the same,” Pablos said in a statement Saturday night. “I look forward to a robust, spirited debate over the next month.”
Notably absent from the May 3 race was an assortment of local groups that have been major players in past city elections that decided it was too risky to get involved in a race with so many candidates and few clear frontrunners.
The San Antonio Police Officers Association, the San Antonio firefighters’ union, the union representing city employees (AFSCME), the progressive Texas Organizing Project all declined to weigh in until at least the runoff.
San Antonio Report freelancer Amber Esparza contributed to this story.
Correction: This story has been updated to remove an inaccurate reference to Jones’ race.
