Along with a host of state and federal races on the March 5 primary ballot, Republicans and Democrats in Bexar County will select a party chair, responsible for raising money, recruiting candidates and precinct chairs and overseeing primary elections.

The high-stress, unpaid role is known for attracting controversy.

In recent years county party chairs have been accused of using the role as a shadow operation for a consulting business, spreading conspiracy theories, and taking political retribution against one of the most powerful legislative leaders San Antonio has ever sent to the state Capitol.

This time around, long-simmering conflicts among local Democrats have resurfaced in the party chair race, causing incumbent Monica Ramirez Alcántara to defend her campaign spending and late finance reports. Alcántara defeated incumbent Manuel Medina for the chairmanship in 2018 and his allies still resent the loss, rallying around her opponent, family counselor Sandragrace Martinez, this year.

“Over the past few elections the local Democratic Party has evolved, and when people evolve, others lose power,” said Bexar County Democratic strategist Samantha Hernandez. “Right now that’s what we’re seeing. People that have lost power trying to regain it.”

Republicans, meanwhile, face an open party chair race dominated by deep divisions at the state and national level.

Outgoing chair Jeff McManus is an outspoken Trump supporter who defeated incumbent John Austin for the job in 2022, but is leaving after a single two-year term due to frustration with warring factions of activists. On his way out, McManus has mirrored the state party in promoting challenges to incumbents who he feels lack ideological purity.

“It’s been 15 years since the Republicans had a real countywide success … and since that time, Bexar County has become solidly blue,” former District 10 Councilman Carlton Soules, who moderated a debate between two of the three GOP chair candidates Tuesday. In light of those facts, Soules asked the candidates to name “realistic expectations and goals for the party over the next two years.”

Democrats

Alcántara is a litigation paralegal who first ran for party chair out of frustration with Democratic office holders who weren’t upholding the party’s values, she told the San Antonio Report in a recent interview. In particular, Alcántara said she has an LGBTQ daughter and the incumbent she ran against was campaigning on conservative family values.

“I felt like, this just isn’t right that we have a chairman that’s taken all these stances that do not align with the Democratic Party and don’t align with my family,” Alcántara said of her 2018 race.

Under her leadership, the party censured then-state Rep. Leo Pacheco over his support for permitless carry in 2021. Pacheco resigned several months after that, and Republican John Lujan flipped the seat in a special election.

The party now faces an expensive, uphill challenge to win that seat back in 2024, something Alcántara’s critics say is evidence the party needs a new leader who avoids alienating older, Hispanic and Catholic voters.

“We lost a district on the South Side,” Martinez said in an interview. “It started with Leo Pacheco, and [more recently] there was also the danger of Barbara Gervin-Hawkins being censured” over her support for charter schools.

“It’s a very dangerous thing to do, and the consequences can be great,” Martinez said of the censure tool.

Martinez has previously run unsuccessfully for City Council and Texas Land Commissioner. In her party chair race, she has the support of the Bexar County SD 19 Tejano Democrats, a Democratic club that includes many Medina allies and wants to keep the party as broad as possible.

Alcántara says Medina-aligned critics are behind an effort to attack her over late personal campaign finance reports, which she is paying $11,000 to resolve. She has also been accused of using campaign funds for personal travel, but said she has turned over text messages and documents to disprove those allegations.

“There are different allegations they keep making every single year,” Alcántara said. “The first year I was ‘kicking everyone out of the party.’ The second year it was I was a racist against Latinos. It’s the same group of people.”

Republicans

Bexar County Republicans are also deeply divided on how the party should go about enforcing ideological purity.

McManus supporters had initially hoped he could lead the party to a more inclusive future, and he has made significant efforts to increase its external communications and public events. But McManus also led unsuccessful efforts to censure U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Tony Gonzales over the past two years, and in an unusual move, has helped promote a slate of primary opponents running against nearly every Bexar County GOP officeholder on the ballot this March, including Gonzales, Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) and state Rep. Steve Allison.

That approach matches that of current leaders of Republican Party of Texas, which has enjoyed so much electoral success in recent years that it’s no longer concerned about defending candidates in general elections.

But in Bexar County, where Democrats have a tight hold on most county-level offices, candidates running to replace McManus are eager to show they can welcome new voters into the party.

At Tuesday’s candidate forum Kris Coons, the previous president of the Bexar County Republican Women, said she would start by trying to refocus the county’s growing number of Republican clubs.

“One of the first things we have to do is to try to find that common denominator … and that should be to beat Democrats,” Coons said.

Robert Flores, a longtime lobbyist who ran unsuccessfully for District 10’s City Council seat in 2023, said the party needs to reach back out to Republicans who have been turned off by local party leaders in the past and work closely with the faith community to bring new potential allies into the fold.

“I know there’s folks out there, [who say] ‘Why would I get involved in the local Republican Party? They’re a bunch of nuts anyway,'” Flores said at the forum. “I know I can break those barriers and reengage those Republicans.”

Print shop owner Jacinto “Chinto” Martinez, who did not attend Tuesday’s forum, said in an interview that he is running to shift the party from its singular focus on the North Side.

“A lot of the stuff that Joe Biden has been doing is turning away a lot of Hispanics and the Black community from the Democrat side … but they don’t relate to the Republican Party because the Republican Party concentrates so much on the North Side,” he said. “If we had better representation in these other parts, someone actually there to talk to them and explain to them what we stand on, I think we would be able to raise our numbers.”

‘A full-time job’

Though county party chair is one of the lowest levels of grassroots political activism, both Alcántara and McManus said they weather consistent personal attacks from people who disagree with them ideologically within their own party.

Alcántara said critics have scrutinized personal trips with her daughters, while McManus recounted that one particularly cantankerous GOP activist sought to undermine his party unification efforts, as well as the efforts of other past chairs.

And while candidates must raise money for both the party and their own personal campaigns, the party chair job is unpaid.

“It’s a full-time job and then some — you’re looking at maybe 70-plus hours [per week] during the election cycle,” said Alcántara. “You miss dinners with family and all of that, but I know how important this election is.”