Republicans have long had one sure seat on the Bexar County Commissioners Court. Now even that looks fragile, in the final weeks of a presidential contest that’s sucking the oxygen away from local candidates’ campaigns.
Precinct 3 on the county’s Northside — represented by Republican Grant Moody — encompasses some of Bexar County’s reddest territory and has sent a long line of Republicans to the county’s five-member commissioners court.
Despite that track record, the precinct’s support for Republicans at the statewide and federal level has plummeted in recent years, at the same time its population has exploded with growth.
“There’s clearly been, over the last decade, some shifts in voter support at the presidential level,” said Moody, a Marine fighter pilot who won the seat in a 2022 special election. “It’s hard to determine whether those are anomalies, or whether the district still has a red foundation.”
Last election cycle Moody carried the precinct by 7 percentage points, while Republican Gov. Greg Abbott carried it by just over 2 percentage points.
Races have been even tighter in presidential elections, when more voters turn out to vote. Former President Donald Trump won Precinct 3 by a comfortable double-digit margin in 2016, but carried it by just 0.7 percentage point victory in 2020 — according to Democrats who crunched the numbers.
On a Thursday evening just days out from the start of early voting, Moody was raising money at Big’z Burger Joint near UTSA for the launch of an advertising campaign he said is still forthcoming in his reelection race against Democrat Susan Korbel.
Though he believes the precinct still prefers his fiscally conservative approach when it comes to local issues, he said he’s clear-eyed about the challenges presented by a volatile national political environment.
A recent UTSA poll indicated that Democratic enthusiasm across Bexar County has skyrocketed since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee in July.
Republicans’ own internal polling in Precinct 3 shows a dead heat between Harris and Trump at the top of the ticket.
The party barn at Big’z on Thursday was decorated with Moody’s old flight jacket, squadron memorabilia and signs touting his endorsements from law enforcement groups.
Missing from the event was any mention of the presidential race, among a crowd of both regular GOP activists and less-political types, including families whose kids play sports with the Moody children.
“I think that by focusing on the work at the county, some of that can appeal to not just Republicans,” Moody said of his approach in an interview at the event. “We can appeal to independents and Democrats, too, who just care about making sure that our roads get fixed, that our hospital district gets funded, that we have more law enforcement officers on the streets, and that we try to lower their property taxes.”
A background in public opinion
Among those closely tracking the shifts in Precinct 3 is Moody’s Democratic opponent, Korbel, who has owned a market research firm in San Antonio since 1989.
She waged an unsuccessful campaign against Moody two years ago and was ready to sit this year out, she said, until her husband presented her with a spreadsheet detailing the precinct’s tightening races as its population has grown over the past decade.
According to Korbel’s numbers, Precinct 3 added roughly 100,000 new registered voters between 2012 and 2022 — an almost 40 percent increase.
The precinct added about 10,000 new voters between 2020 and 2022, and Korbel said there’s been a noticeable difference in Democratic enthusiasm since she campaigned for the seat just two years ago.
“A lot of people have been moving into Precinct 3 who are of modest means, and they see the Democrats as being more open to helping people,” said Korbel, who has been focusing particular attention on the growing area near UTSA. “On a national level, we’re gonna flip it.”
At a candidate forum hosted by the Oak Park Northwood Neighborhood Association Thursday night, Korbel pointed to her experience serving on the Alamo Colleges District Board in the early 2000s as evidence she would bring accountability to a body that makes many decisions outside of the public’s view.
She was a whistleblower in a corruption scandal in which several Alamo Colleges trustees were charged and one went to prison.
“If there’s something wrong, I’m going to call it out,” Korbel said.
She also laid out her concerns about safe development over the Edwards Aquifer, and what she views as insufficient infrastructure to meet the transportation demands of the next generation.
“When you get to the very bottom of the ballot, think carefully about somebody who, for 35 years, has been answering phone calls, listening to people,” Korbel said of her market research firm’s work. “That’s what my business has been: listening to people.”
A changing Republican Party
Despite a promising-looking political trajectory, Korbel’s race still hasn’t been a high priority for Democrats.
She reported raising and spending only about $15,000 over the past three months, and had about that much on hand for the final stretch. Moody, meanwhile, reported $177,000 on hand, and raised at least another $30,000 on Thursday night alone.
Though Democrats have been pouring money into a nearby statehouse race where the incumbent Republican was ousted in the primary, Moody, on the other hand, is still considered a formidable incumbent with some cross-party appeal.
His deeply conservative background helped make him the choice of Republican precinct chairs to run for the seat in 2022, but his resume includes an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, as well as executive roles at USAA and Valero.
Since arriving on the court, Moody and his team say they’ve been pleasantly surprised by the collaboration with county staff and fellow commissioners to solve problems and deliver money for projects in his precinct.
Those behind-the-scenes negotiations earned Moody an expensive primary challenge this year from a construction company owner who said he’s contributing to the county’s transparency problems.
But his relationships across the aisle have also helped insulate him from hyperpartisan labels hurting other GOP candidates this cycle, even as he’s lurched that direction with increasing frequency.
In recent weeks Moody has railed against plans to fund a rapid bus line, argued over legal representation for undocumented immigrants in the jail and sought to stop the county’s efforts to register new eligible voters — a move that put him in the company of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“He voted against public transportation. He also voted against outreach for people to be able to register to vote,” Korbel said. “Both of those things I’m finding, when I’m out knocking on doors, people don’t like that.”
Moody, on the other hand, believes he’s built a record that transcends partisanship, highlighting investments in law enforcement and maxing out the homestead exemption for the hospital district.
“Those accomplishments, that record of getting things done and being a pragmatic problem solver for the community, I think that carries weight with voters,” Moody said.
