Democratic primary challenger Ron Nirenberg pulled off a massive upset Tuesday, knocking off incumbent Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai.
With all 272 vote centers reporting at 1:37 a.m., Nirenberg leads Sakai, 62.2% to 37.8% in the Democratic primary.
Earlier on Tuesday night as polls closed, a crowd of Sakai supporters crammed into La Fonda in Alamo Heights, enjoying a buffet, mariachi music and words of encouragement from Sakai and his family awaiting the results.
The once energetic crowd grew quiet amid gasps at the first wave of results that came across the TV, which showed his challenger in a comfortable lead.
“Obviously we’re disappointed with the vote totals, but it ain’t over,” said Sakai, who departed his watch party shortly after to watch the final results from home.
Nirenberg, meanwhile, was already claiming victory. He thanked supporters at a watch party at Backyard on Broadway.
“Tonight, you elected me as your Democratic nominee for Bexar County,” he said. “We didn’t just win a primary, we committed to fixing a broken justice system. We resolved that everyone should have access to quality health care regardless of their ZIP code, and we agreed that no one should have to choose between a roof over their head and food on the table.”
The unusual race between two well-known Democrats comes just three years after Sakai was sworn in to replace longtime Judge Nelson Wolff, who held the role for two decades before retiring in 2022.
County judges aren’t subject to term limits in Texas, and many of them serve long tenures.
But across the state, ambitious newcomers have seen potential in a historically bureaucratic role — rethinking the responsibilities of county government and turning the position into a political launchpad.
Outspoken progressive Lina Hidalgo shocked political watchers by unseating longtime Republican Harris County Judge Ed Emmett in 2018. Then in 2022, voters chose Republican firebrand Tim O’Hare to succeed longtime Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley.
Unlike Wolff, a savvy political operator known for his big city-shaping projects, Sakai spent most of his career as a district court judge, where he gained tremendous respect for his work on difficult child abuse cases.
As a career capstone, he sought the role of the county’s chief executive so that he could refocus limited resources around parts of county government he said had been neglected, like overseeing the courts, the jail and elections.
But Sakai was slow to learn the political side of the job, and lacked a broader vision for county development when he first took office. Last year those problems went from a learning curve to a glaring weakness, when city leaders went around him to negotiate a new Spurs arena that involved moving the team out of the county-owned Frost Bank Center
Eventually Sakai helped deliver a plan to both rehabilitate the old East Side facility and contribute county funds to the new arena downtown, which voters approved on the November 2025 ballot.
But at that point, the wheels were already turning among some business leaders who wanted him replaced.
Nirenberg, 48, has billed himself as a leader in the mold of Wolff, adept at navigating personalities on the dais and bringing the needed stakeholders on board with big city-shaping initiatives.
He came to the City Council in 2013 with only a theoretical understanding of politics, having worked as the program director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center early in his career.
But he rose from council member to mayor in just four years, where he pushed the city to make novel investments in affordable housing, public transit and workforce development, to name a few.
“We need leaders around like at all levels of government who are going to meet the moment with urgency, And we’ve seen that from him time and time again,” said Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), one of the council’s most progressive voices and an early supporter of Nirenberg’s county judge campaign.
“Whether it’s addressing workforce and education with the Ready to Work Program, or transit with Advanced Rapid Transit, with the expansion of our airport, or the implementation of our equity lens [in the city budget] or the Strategic Housing Implementation Plan, the climate action implementation plan, it’s countless. He has a clear vision.”
Over time, Nirenberg shed his once apolitical approach to city government. He became a vocal critic of state GOP leaders and forged relationships with a Biden Administration that made San Antonio a major beneficiary of historic federal infrastructure investments.
Nirenberg also became very close with Wolff, a formidable political mentor, as they led one of the country’s most economically vulnerable communities through the Covid-19 pandemic.
They delivered frequent updates together on TV, and later considered the experience so moving that Wolff published a book about it titled, “The Mayor and the Judge.”
Wolff was one of the earliest supporters of Nirenberg’s county judge bid, urging him to run despite his lack of traditional legal background or experience in the state legislature.
In the end, only a few major donors became invested in either side of the Nirenberg vs. Sakai race.
Sakai got big help from realtors, while Nirenberg leaned hard on money from local philanthropist Harvey Najim and Christian Archer, his old political aide who has since become wealthy from legal investments.
Earlier this cycle Nirenberg was said to be considering a run for governor, and he has a PAC that’s name suggests bigger eventual ambitions.
“We need effectiveness from our public leaders or we’re going to continue to cede ground to folks who want to burn it all down,” Nirenberg said Tuesday night. “I’m speaking specifically about the extremists in the Republican Party that are in control of the state and this country right now.”
Excitement in this race likely ebbs after the primary, since Republicans haven’t won a countywide office in Bexar County for more than a decade.
Their nominee Trish DeBerry took just 39% of the vote in 2022, and after struggling to field a candidate this year, they’re leaning on conservative activist Patrick Von Dohlen.
Regardless, Sakai will now have 10 more months as county judge before a successor is sworn in.
“To the extent that he’s willing, I want to work with him through the transition,” Nirenberg said. “Our styles are different, but I’m looking forward to working with him for the next nine to 10 months.”
