San Antonio Municipal Runoffs Preview
Welcome to the first preview of the reincarnated Primary School. This one's a short one, only covering San Antonio's June 7 municipal runoffs (yes, the election is on a Saturday), but you can expect a much, much longer preview of New Jersey's June 10 Democratic primaries in your inboxes on Monday.
The city of San Antonio has nonpartisan elections, but most of these races are effectively Democrat-versus-Republican bouts and as such will only get a brief overview. All of these races are runoffs, which are required only when no candidate achieves a majority in the first round in May.
Mayor
Gina Ortiz Jones vs. Rolando Pablos
Former congressional candidate and Biden administration official Gina Ortiz Jones fought her way through the first round and eliminated her fellow Democratic opponents on the way, earning her a ticket to a runoff with Republican Rolando Pablos, a former Texas Secretary of State. Texas Republicans are backing Pablos to the hilt, but partisanship should carry Ortiz Jones, who would succeed outgoing Mayor Ron Nirenberg, also a Democrat. However, local Democrats are quite nervous as Ortiz Jones's defeated opponents have stayed on the sidelines in the runoff, and Ortiz Jones's allies have put out a last-minute call for help. Despite a sour national political environment for the GOP, they could be headed for a flip here—with harsh consequences for this city of 1.4 million.
City Council District 1 (central San Antonio)
Sukh Kaur (i) vs. Patty Gibbons
District 1 is one of the most left-leaning in San Antonio; the last race was between incumbent progressive Mario Bravo and fellow progressive challenger Sukh Kaur, who ended up trouncing Bravo in a runoff. In the first round this year, Kaur faced a field of candidates also running in the progressive lane. However, while that crowded field held Kaur just below 50% and forced her into a runoff, none of Kaur’s left-of-center opponents advanced. Conservative neighborhood activist Patty Gibbons did, turning this into a de facto partisan race.
City Council District 6 (western San Antonio)
Ric Galvan vs. Kelly Ann Gonzalez
This race is traditional Primary School fare. Two candidates emerged from a crowded pileup with less than 20% of the vote each, both of them progressives. 34-year-old labor organizer Kelly Ann Gonzalez is the choice of outgoing Councilor Melissa Cabello Havrda, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor; the pair have worked together in the past. Further left is DSA-endorsed candidate Ric Galvan, a 24-year-old organizer, neighborhood association president, and staffer for District 5 Councilor Teri Castillo. Castillo is one of two democratic socialists on the San Antonio city council, and she’s backing her employee. In a sign of how hard this race has split the broader left, the other democratic socialist on the San Antonio city council, Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, is backing Gonzalez; labor unions are similarly split, and the vanquished opponents of Galvan and Gonzalez have also split evenly between the pair. (Both candidates are quietly sanding the edges off their more progressive pasts to appeal to conservative voters without a natural choice in this runoff.)
City Council District 8 (northwest San Antonio)
Ivalis Meza Gonzalez vs. Paula McGee
Democrats’ candidate in this runoff is political consultant Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, the former chief of staff to Ron Nirenberg and a previous candidate for Bexar County Judge (county executive), after the elimination of another Democrat, progressive Sakib Shaikh, in the first round. Republicans have Paula McGee, an attorney who has served on the city’s zoning commission. Meza Gonzalez and Shaikh had an ugly, contentious race, but together the two Democrats combined for more than 60% of the vote; Meza Gonzalez should be favored, but the Democratic brand is battered in San Antonio at the local level, so much so that she rejected the Bexar County Democratic Party's endorsement; this is also a relatively conservative district.
City Council District 9 (far northern San Antonio)
Angi Taylor Aramburu vs. Misty Spears
This seat contains the most conservative parts of San Antonio, but they’re trending left, and that plus the weaker partisanship of nonpartisan elections has allowed moderate Democrat John Courage to hold this seat for two terms. Courage left this seat behind to run for mayor, and now former state House candidate Angi Taylor Aramburu is Democrats’ choice to hold this difficult seat, though she is consciously running as a nonpartisan candidate and rejecting the Democratic endorsement for the same reasons as Ivalis Meza Gonzalez in District 8. Conservative activist Misty Spears should be able to tap into simple partisanship—but Spears has faded from the campaign trail in the home stretch as Taylor Aramburu has tried to make hay of Spears’s personal finances, and Courage has pivoted from the mayoral loss to stumping for Taylor Aramburu.