Longtime GOP activist Misty Spears will represent Northside District 9 — flipping a seat her party considered must-win this election cycle.

Conservatives have long controlled just a single seat on San Antonio’s 10-member City Council, while the city’s reddest territory has been represented by Councilman John Courage (D9), a moderate Democrat.

With Courage termed out this year, Spears finished first in the crowded May 3 race to replace him.

With all 182 vote centers reporting, she defeated Angi Taylor Aramburu, Courage’s endorsed successor and a former Democratic state House candidate, 56.74% to 43.26% in a runoff Saturday night.

Wearing a red polka-dot dress and matching red pumps, Spears spoke to supporters at a watch party at Big’z Burger Joint on the far North Side.

“This has been the journey of a lifetime,” a tearful Spears said.  “I am so proud to represent District 9. I grew up here, this is my home, I love it.”

Spears thanked campaign volunteers, and her campaign manager and Bexar County Republican Party Chairwoman Kris Coons, saying, “You gave your time, your money, your prayers.”

To her children, she said, “I did this for you.”

A must-win seat

In a county where a small number of elected Republicans have struggled to expand their ranks, Courage’s success in one of the county’s most GOP-friendly political subdivisions has long been frustrating. 

“You can’t expect us to win road games if you can’t even win our home game, right?” said GOP activist and Spears campaign surrogate Kyle Bolch sizing up the race at a recent gathering of the Republican Club of Bexar County. “District 9 is supposed to be the big conservative district, but what’s happened in the last eight years?”

Spears, 44, is well-known and liked in Republican circles, and was considered the GOP’s best shot among a number of right-leaning candidates. She served as the GOP’s nominee for county clerk in 2022 and went on to work in constituent services for Bexar County’s lone GOP Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) after that race. 

Her husband, Adrian Spears, was elected to the Fourth Court of Appeals as a Republican in 2024.  

District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte said that he was the happiest person in the watch party room — after Spears, her husband and family. 

“There is so much work to be done down at City Hall, and more than ever, right now, we need voices that are practical, that are conservative and are fiscally responsible.”

Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) was among the first to congratulate Spears on her victory. 

“I’m looking forward to working with you as the next councilwoman from District 9 — I know we’re going to get some great things done at the city with Marc Whyte,” Moody said. 

“We’re going to work more and more hand-in-hand between the city and the county, and I think Misty’s going to be an important part of that going forward,” he added.

While Spears embraced her conservative brand in the race, Taylor Aramburu sought to minimize partisan labels, even turning down an endorsement from the Bexar County Democratic Party.

“We need to be pragmatists and make decisions based on facts and data and community feedback, not on what our political party thinks we should do,” Aramburu said in a recent interview. 

Her campaign was backed by an array of left-leaning labor groups: San Antonio’s AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, AFSCME (the union representing city employees) and the Northside American Federation of Teachers.

Compared to past candidates the party has put up for the nonpartisan seat, Spears’ council campaign drew an impressively broad coalition of supporters, highlighted in a May fundraiser invitation with a host committee that ranged from social conservative activist Patrick Von Dohlen to San Antonio developer David Adelman. 

Spears also received help from business-backed groups San Antonio Equity Alliance and Better SA, as well as the local police and fire unions and the Texas Realtors PAC.

“Generally on our side, candidates either appeal to the moderates or they appeal to the more conservatives — Misty appeals to everybody,” Bolch said at the GOP rally. “She listens, and just the way she deals with people, she is a unifier.”

Fiscal issues dominate race

After finishing first by about 400 votes in the May 3 race, however, Spears took a step back from public campaign events during the runoff, while critics accused her of dodging questions about her personal finances. 

Despite running on her fiscal conservative values and years of professional accounting experience, opponents pointed out that Spears is currently in a legal fight over credit card debt, and had several IRS liens about a decade ago that she’s since paid off. 

Addressing that criticism in an April debate, Spears said all of her experience — both personal and professional — would help her be a leader in a city that has some of the highest municipal debt in Texas, and that already faces a budget deficit for the coming year.

She pointed to past roles working for Clear Channel Communications and Pioneer Drilling Company, in addition to more recent work with her family businesses.

“We started my husband’s law practice and represented and sued local governmental entities, and he’s now a justice at the Fourth Court of Appeals,” she said during the debate. “And I have worked really hard at raising our family, and [at working] in the sphere of being an appellate paralegal, so I have a great understanding of election law and municipalities.”

“I have all these skills with my accounting that really lend to understanding how to be fiscally responsible and knowing how to get us out of a bind,” Spears said. “You can trust me, because I’ve already done it.”

On Saturday, Spears called the personal financial issues raised during her campaign “incorrect,” but added it is a “good comeback story.” 

Looking forward, Spears said she thinks her presence on the City Council is going to bring both balance and new ideas.

“I think we are on the cusp of an excellent opportunity for San Antonio,” she said.

‘Republican vs. a Democrat’

Aramburu addressed supporters at her watch party early in the evening as results began to show she would lose in her campaign for the District 9 seat, thanking them but not yet conceding. 

“I’m really proud of the campaign we ran,” she told the Report outside Alamo Kitchens on West Avenue.

“It was strong, it was community-focused, I think we did a great job,” she said. “At the end of the day, you can’t fight all of that money that rolled into this race from the other side, which definitely made an impact.”

Aramburu added that she’s still deeply concerned about active lawsuits against her opponent and how it would affect her service on the council, adding, “but District 9 is stronger than any one person.”

Courage said he was disappointed that it looked as if Aramburu wouldn’t be his successor and expressed his frustration over the partisan nature of the District 9 campaign and others on council. 

“This has become a Republican vs. a Democrat race … and I think that’s very unfortunate,” he said. “I don’t believe that there’s a Democrat or Republican way of filling a pothole. It’s all about people who are committed to the community, not a political ideology.”

Despite the outcome, San Antonio political consultant Laura Barberena said Taylor Aramburu possessed some rare political talent, so much so that she wound up volunteering on her campaign this year.

“I was just so impressed with her,” Barberena said. “I was like, ‘Man, these are the kinds of people that need to be running for office.’ She just checks every box for me.”

She said Taylor Aramburu would almost certainly be a future leader, one way or another.

“I know she’s going to serve our community in other capacities, whether it’s on a committee at the city, or school board or something else,” she said. “She has a passion to serve, and that just doesn’t end with this campaign.”