First-time candidate Sukh Kaur ended Mario Bravo’s time as District 1’s council member after just one term, grabbing 59.1% of the vote Saturday in a runoff. Bravo took 40.9%.
Kaur, 34, is a former teacher and public school administrator who now owns her own education consulting company.
She became the first candidate to challenge Bravo in October, and eventually rallied support and campaign help from a long list of political influencers, including former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and longtime ad maker Lionel Sosa.
Council members Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), as well as former District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, attended her election night party at El Honky Tonk.
“They’ve been giving me advice and mentoring me because they knew I was a blank slate,” Kaur said of her supporters in an interview Saturday night.
“I think that voters will really appreciate that because I don’t come to any issue with a preconceived notion,” she said.
With the runoff elections of Kaur and Marina Alderete Gavito in District 7, six of the 10 San Antonio City Council members will be women.
Bravo has represented the district since 2021, when he ousted three-term incumbent Roberto Treviño in a runoff.
This year Bravo again finished second in the first round of votes, taking 26% to Kaur’s 34%, but was seemingly abandoned by the business community and political establishment in the runoff.
On Saturday he called Kaur to concede around 8 p.m., after early and absentee voting results showed her with a wide lead but before any election day results had been released.
“Our opponent ran a really strong campaign, not just for political newcomer, but for anybody,” Bravo said at his election night watch party at Backyard on Broadway.
“I told her we’re here to assist her in any way, shape or form,” Bravo said of his call with Kaur.
From India to San Antonio
Kaur is the first person of South Asian descent to be elected to San Antonio’s City Council. She was born in Northern India and immigrated to the U.S. with her family at age 2.
At her watch party Saturday, Kaur was introduced by her father, Pardeep Aneja, who described the way the caste system in India prevents people from rising in social status.
“What she has done, it is unbelievable,” he said.
Kaur moved to Texas in 2006 to attend Rice University, where she earned degrees in political science and social policy, with dreams of becoming a civil rights lawyer.
Her plans changed after participating in a human rights fellowship, when Kaur decided to pursue a career with more immediate impact.
She spent two years teaching middle school as part of Teach for America, while also completing a master’s degree in business administration through the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program. She then became a high school administrator while working on a doctorate in educational leadership and administration from Vanderbilt University.
“When I was a teacher I thought, ‘Policy doesn’t matter — all I have to do is focus on what’s happening in my classroom, and do a better job as a teacher, and I can change the life of all the kids in my classroom,” Kaur told the Tejano Democrats at a candidate forum in April. “Fifteen years later, you realize policy matters.”
Kaur moved to San Antonio in 2017 for a job at City Education Partners, a nonprofit focused on bringing innovation to public schools. She later opened her own business, an education consulting firm that helps public school districts open charter schools.
Her connection to charter schools, combined with support she received from a pro-charter school PAC that’s given to conservatives, drew criticism on the campaign trail from teachers unions, which supported Bravo.
On the City Council, Kaur said she hopes to focus on some of the equity issues that hamper educators’ work, and in turn contribute to the city’s persistent workforce deficiencies. She’s also focused on repairing infrastructure and digging into persistent construction delays that dogged Bravo’s reelection campaign.
Despite her apolitical background, Kaur’s unusual resume has helped her make many connections with the city’s political and business elite.
Aside from her consulting company, Kaur has a real estate license, teaches yoga and is developing a mixed-use building in Southtown.
“She’s a problem solver who has done so many things in her professional career,” said Ashley Edwards, a senior business intelligence analyst at Rackspace who plays on an all-women flag football team with Kaur and helped her council campaign. Speaking just before Kaur’s unexpected first-place finish in the May 6 race, Edwards said, “I think she’s being really underestimated.”
Assessing the loss
After that race Bravo brought on professional campaign staff, including San Antonio political strategists Laura Barberena and Bert Santibañez, who worked for a different candidate, Jeremy Roberts, ahead of the May 6 race.
“We’re going to have to really sit down and assess what happened,” Bravo said of the race Saturday. “This was a hard race to read.”
Bravo is a longtime progressive campaign operative who most recently worked as a project manager for the Environmental Defense Fund. He counts among his top accomplishments helping bring accountability to CPS Energy leadership.
This year Bravo entered the election cycle as one of the most vulnerable incumbents, after colleagues issued him a vote of no-confidence for berating then-Councilwoman Ana Sandoval to the point of tears ahead of a Sept. 15 budget vote.
Asked whether he believed the censure vote played a role in his defeat, Bravo said yes: “I think it had everything to do with it.”
Despite the censure, Bravo maintained many allies among neighborhood leaders who said he’d been attentive to their issues.
“We’re losing a champion,” said Toni-Marie Van Buren, a past president of the Monte Vista Neighborhood Association and former United Way executive who managed Bravo’s reelection race.
Bravo ran unsuccessfully for Bexar County Commissioners Court in 2018. He’s keeping the door open to another political campaign in the future.
“I’ve had a lot of different jobs, I’ve done a lot of different things, and so I’ll just have to reassess and figure it out,” Bravo said of his future plans. “I’m not going away… I’m dedicated to this community and I will continue to be involved.”
