Meet housing activist Maureen Galindo, who rode a shoestring campaign to a high-profile congressional runoff

When a new owner started making improvements to Maureen Galindo‘s downtown apartment complex in 2017, she saw an opportunity to put her community psychology training to work. 

Then a 31-year-old single mom, she’d just finished the courses for a master’s program in Portland focused on improving the health of underserved communities, and moved her three small children to San Antonio where they could live more affordably.

Months after moving into their $830 per month apartment, however, a massive public redevelopment project on San Pedro Creek had already started to spur change in the neighborhood, putting Galindo at the forefront of an affordable housing fight that would later become the topic of her master’s thesis — and shape her trajectory for the next decade to come.

Last month Galindo shocked political watchers by finishing first in Democrats’ primary for a brand-new congressional district in Southwest San Antonio — outperforming the national party’s favored candidate Johnny Garcia, who she’ll now face in a May 26 primary runoff.

“The reason I got the most votes with the least amount of money in this race is from eight years of grassroots organizing, working with people, empowering people,” Galindo said of the March 3 election results. “[They know that] I’m going to fight for the people and get the millionaires and billionaires who have taken over our political system out of there.”

The 35th Congressional District is ground zero in the Trump administration’s efforts to squeeze more Republican seats out of Texas, and both parties now consider it a top target in the battle for control of the U.S. House.

But Democratic Party leaders have long believed their chances at holding the redrawn district — which now stretches east to include three counties President Donald Trump won — hinged on finding the right candidate to win back moderates and Hispanic voters that appear to be trending away from the GOP.

After failing to land a higher-profile recruit, party leaders have hung their hopes on Garcia, a longtime sheriff’s deputy whose connections to the centrist Blue Dog Coalition and a pro-Israel PAC have made him the best-funded candidate in the race, but also given some local progressives pause.

“Trump [carried] this seat by 10.5% and so to win it, there needs to be a candidate who has appeal to a broad, big coalition of voters beyond just the Democratic base,” said Phil Gardner, a senior adviser at Blue Dog Action PAC, which spent $300,000 on TV ads for Garcia in the first round. “Johnny — his life story and his career in law enforcement — is the right match.”

Read more: ‘Old-school Democrat’: Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia wages congressional bid

National Democratic groups are confident Garcia can rally moderates to win the runoff, and have already signaled plans to spend more money to help him get there.

As it stands, however, there are different opinions about what caused Galindo’s surge in the first place.

New maps moved 43% of Bexar County residents to a new congressional district this year, and non-traditional primary voters showed up in droves for the U.S. Senate race, creating a number of unexpected outcomes down-ballot.

“None of the candidates got over 30% [of the vote in Democrats’ TX35 primary], so I think it’s just a case where most voters didn’t really know any of these folks,” Gardner told the Report.

But some local strategists credit an unabashedly progressive profile that met Democratic primary voters where they’re at — despite bringing in less than 3% of the vote in a San Antonio City Council race just 10 months ago.

Galindo grew up in Philadelphia, lived in Texas for several years while pursing an undergraduate degree and following a military husband, and later retuned to San Antonio where she started practicing family therapy.

Now 38, her progressive bonafides include working with city leaders to craft a rental assistance program that helped San Antonio bring in and distribute big federal dollars during the Covid-19 pandemic, while her shoestring congressional campaign has drawn attention on social media criticizing development incentives through two high-profile sports venue projects.

“I remember when we were in school, and the teacher was like,’ Does anybody think they’re going to do something that’s actually participatory?'” Galindo reflected on the city program. “Everybody was like, ‘Yeah, right. It’s so hard to do.’ … I actually did it.”

But her years of organizing have also earned her a reputation for being compromise-adverse — at times running off potential allies who say she wasn’t willing to accept the realities of the housing landscape.

And her progressive stances on social media — from calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” to deriding the Opportunity Home CEO — give some Democratic strategists heartburn as they think about the tough November race ahead.

Nevertheless, Galindo’s brand of politics now seems to be resonating with some Democrats who are angry with a party they say has repeatedly failed to inspire voters.

“People are not demanding moderation, they’re demanding immediate change, and Maureen offers that to the electorate,” said John Lira, who finished third in the Democratic primary, and is now backing her campaign. “She brings the fierce voice, the passion that we’re going to need to win this race.”

Appearing beside her at a press conference the day after the primary, Lira and the other Democrat in the race, Whitney Masterson-Moyes, vowed to help Galindo scale up for the race, and some of Lira’s old campaign staff has already been helping her with communications.

“If we can all get together and help Maureen through this, it’d be the biggest political upset ever,” Masterson-Moyes said.

Republicans face their own primary runoff in this race, after state GOP leaders drew the district for state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio), but national party leaders broke off for retired Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz.

The San Antonio Report caught up with Galindo shortly after the primary to talk about her surprising first-place finish, her pivot to federal politics, and her plans for a tough runoff. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

You have a very grassroots background of organizing at the city level and at the neighborhood level. How would you apply that experience to politics at the federal level?

I understand how the systems function and how to navigate politics, when to work with people in a collaborative manner and when to take a step back and allow other people to do their thing.

I think at the federal level, that grassroots [work] looks to me just like being in the community — building a bunch of participatory moments where people can understand what’s going on [and] how the federal level affects it.

[That’s important] for one, so that I know what we need at the federal level, but also so that we’re teaching people how to navigate at the state, county, and city level, because that’s the only way we’re going to be able to create a real, beautiful future of San Antonio, is if everybody is involved at every single level. 

So that’s my goal, to create that structure or environment, where everybody can network and communicate with each other, to be able to overtake the special interests that have taken over our political system, so that the people have the power to decide what happens with our resources.

Is there anyone currently in Congress who you’d be similar to, or whose vision you think is similar?

I keep myself so autonomous and independent of any kind of political spectrum. I know what I stand for. I know how to navigate these systems and to not be overcome or persuaded just because that seems to be what the popular thing is. I’m going to be doing what the constituents, the people of TX35, want me to do. 

U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) has already put out a bill to abolish DHS and completely dismantle ICE so she’s somebody who I would support when I’m in Congress.

You’ve tried running on this message at the local level, in the District 1 council race, and weren’t successful. What made you decide to go for this bigger opportunity?

It’s worth it. Same with my City Council campaign … to me at the end, even though I didn’t even get close, it was worth it to be part of those conversations and help shift narratives.

Through every one of our forums, we get to learn from each other, and we get to grow in our understanding and awareness of the way that we make policy. I love the democratic process. Even [though] I didn’t win, I think it’s a really beautiful thing to be a part of.

Is affordable housing still a major goal as you pivot to federal politics?

Yes, definitely, but the way that we set up affordable housing right now, I’m not actually for. It’s all just subsidies for developers to not pay taxes for a long time, where they have to only make like 10% of their units affordable.

And then when you build infill development of multiple units onto one property, it skyrockets that land value, which then creates higher property value and property taxes for us all. A lot of these affordable housing developments are actually making everything more expensive and unaffordable.

So yeah, through [the Department of Housing and Urban Development in D.C.] I will definitely be [watching] public housing authorities. You can find lots of information on the internet about all the work I’ve done to oversee Opportunity Home San Antonio and — I can’t express enough — the horrid treatment of their tenants. Talk about a politically silenced class. I can’t even get them to recognize the traumas that they put their tenants through in public housing, so I’ll be doing a lot of that [in Congress].

Would you talk a little bit about what your campaign operation looks like right now? Do you have any paid staffers? Do you think you can raise the money to assemble a serious congressional campaign?

I feel good about the fact that I was able to get the most votes with literally under $1,500 that I’ve spent, besides like the $3,000 to get onto the ballot.

I spent [that] to get here, and it was mostly on my own, because I’m a single mom of three. I work full-time as a therapist at a nonprofit. It’s pretty intense work.

I’ve already started to get donations, which to me is just wild, because I’ve been a single mom for so long. There were some periods of time where I was really struggling — even to spend an extra dollar was just not in the budget for so long.

So to be getting all of these donations right now, and knowing that I’m going to make the most out of them because of how resourceful I’ve proven to be throughout the years, I’m really excited about what I can create with this campaign.