TX35 hopeful Johnny Garcia hasn’t even secured his party’s nomination yet, but national Democrats are already listing him among their top candidates to take back seats in the U.S. House this year.
The 39-year-old Westside native has spent nearly his entire career at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, rising from jail guard to the SWAT team and later serving as the sheriff’s communications director.
Though his campaign launch in the new 35th Congressional District surprised some local political watchers, national Democratic Party leaders say he’s exactly what they needed to put a tough seat in play.
This week Garcia was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) red-to-blue program, an elite group of 20 candidates believed to have the best chance of flipping seats either currently held by a Republican or — in light of many redrawn congressional maps — drawn to favor one.
The designation means he’ll get additional strategic guidance, staff resources, candidate trainings and fundraising support for a race that Democratic super PACs are already reserving ads for this fall.
That’s after he was already a personal guest of the Democratic National Committee chair at a national fundraiser earlier this year, and benefitted from hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ads boosting him through a four-way primary.
Read more: The San Antonio Report’s 2026 Democratic Primary Runoff Voter Guide
“Johnny Garcia has dedicated his career to investing in San Antonio, and is ready to answer the call to serve his community in Congress,” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington), who chairs the DCCC, said in a statement Monday. “Texans are eager to elect a leader that will put the needs of hardworking families first, and Garcia is ready to step up to the plate.”
First, Garcia must still get through a May 26 Democratic primary runoff — which is not a given.
In a district that was dramatically redrawn for the 2026 midterm, both parties wound up with crowded fields full of little-known candidates.
And despite spending less than $5,000 on her campaign, housing activist Maureen Galindo finished first in Democrats’ race, taking 29% in the first round, to Garcia’s 27%.
Nevertheless, national Democrats say Garcia’s moderate politics and blue collar work experience are exactly what they need to win a district that’s been trending away from them in the era of President Donald Trump.
Under its new boundaries, Democrat Beto O’Rourke would have come a half a percentage point short of carrying TX35 in 2018 — the last midterm election under a Trump presidency.
But by 2024, those same voters supported Trump by more than 10 percentage points, making the area a ripe target for Republicans’ effort to squeeze more GOP seats out of Texas.
Democrats hoped a bigger-name candidate would jump in after incumbent U.S. Rep Greg Casar (D-Austin) was drawn out in redistricting, yet likely contenders from the legislature were set on the idea courts would eventually throw out Republicans’ gerrymandered maps.
It wasn’t until the filing period had already opened that the Supreme Court gave the green light for new maps to be used.
In that void, the little-known Garcia caught attention from national operatives with a campaign launch focused on his “old-school Democratic principles.”
He came out distancing himself from his progressive, yet popular, boss, Sheriff Javier Salazar, and surprised local political watchers by leapfrogging into one of the biggest new opportunities on Bexar County’s electoral map.
“He’s running a campaign with a message that is more reminiscent of the other Texas Blue Dogs — folks who’ve been able to win seats with this partisan balance — versus a more mainstream Democratic message,” said Phil Gardner, a senior adviser for the Blue Dog Action PAC that ran TV ads helping Garcia in the first round.
“[It’s] been a very interesting process to see him go from somebody who … was not thinking about running for Congress, he didn’t know that this seat was going to be drawn in the way it was, but he has stepped up and has put together a campaign,” Gardner added.
Garcia says his original plan was to run for office when Salazar moved on to something bigger.
But seven months into his campaign, Garcia is now sounding more like a congressional candidate by the day.
Speaking to the North East Bexar County Democrats last month, Garcia said he was running to address “extreme gas prices, healthcare prices, grocery prices that we’re facing as a result of this failed administration.”
He also drew applause for criticizing Texas GOP leaders’ over a gerrymandering effort he said was “created to silence Latino, black and minority voters” here in San Antonio.
Some in the audience remained skeptical about his support from national Democratic groups that spent big to boost him from obscurity. But Garcia said that without a candidate drawing resources to the district, Bexar County stood to end this historically opportune election cycle with even fewer Democrats than when it started.
“I can’t control who decides to put their support in me, but from the get-go … there’s been only one candidate in this race that has come out as the front-runner and has garnered the support that we haven’t had here in Texas,” Garcia said. “We know we need a candidate that is going to help us win back the majority in the House, so we can put some guardrails on this reckless administration.”
