Two incumbent officeholders representing different parts of Bexar County are fighting for their jobs this month, after failing to secure at least 50% of the vote in their parties’ primary races.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose massive 23rd Congressional District runs from San Antonio’s West Side to the U.S.-Mexico border, is up against firearms manufacturer and YouTube personality Brandon Herrera after taking 45% of the vote in a five-way primary.
Meanwhile, Democratic Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores (Pct. 1), who represents most of southern Bexar County, is trying to fend off a challenge from former nonprofit leader Amanda Gonzalez after taking 46% of the vote in a six-way March race.
There’s one more chance to vote on Tuesday, May 28. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 248 polling locations across Bexar County. Here’s everything to know about how to vote in the primary runoffs.
Republicans are voting on candidates to challenge two Democratic congressmen representing parts of Bexar County: U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar in Texas’ 28th Congressional District and Greg Casar in Texas’s 35th Congressional District.
On the Democratic ballot, Bexar County voters will also determine the party’s nominee for the 73rd Civil District Court, which Democrat David Canales vacated earlier this year.
Elsewhere in the state, political observers will be closely watching Texas’ primary runoffs for clues about the state legislative session in 2025. State House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) faces a tough race after finishing second in his primary in March, and a number of other GOP state House runoffs could potentially tilt the math on school vouchers next session.
Here are the five races the reporters and editors of the San Antonio Report will be watching on May 28.
Texas’ 23rd Congressional District
Despite winning all 29 counties, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) skipped out on his watch party and boarded a plane back to D.C. after learning he’d fallen short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff in the March primary.
Since that race, national Republican leaders have swooped in to help Gonzales with his runoff against Brandon Herrera, who took 25% of the vote. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson raised funds with Gonzales in San Antonio last month, and a political group aligned with the speaker is running ads on his behalf.
Wielding the advantages of incumbency, Gonzales has run a slew of ads highlighting old videos from Herrera’s YouTube channel that show the candidate making jokes about Gov. Greg Abbott, former President Donald Trump’s son Barron Trump and veteran suicide. A pro-Israel PAC is also attacking Herrera for using Nazi imagery in some of his YouTube content.
Herrera, meanwhile, is leaning on support from other primary candidates, local GOP chairs, fellow YouTube personalities and some of Gonzales’ enemies in Congress. Those rivalries have only ratcheted up since Gonzales called some of his House colleagues “scumbags” and Klansmen in a CNN interview last month.
Notably, state party activists who censured Gonzales last year will be gathered in San Antonio the weekend before the runoff for the Texas GOP Convention. But Gonzales has the backing of Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who are slated to speak at the event.
Bexar County Pct. 1 Commissioner
Democrat Rebeca Clay-Flores’ grassroots campaign skills helped her unseat a longtime incumbent in 2020, but she entered her first reelection race with a field of opponents who said she’d followed in her predecessor’s footsteps by losing touch with the community since.
The well-funded Clay-Flores is now up against Amanda Gonzalez, the former executive director of a nonprofit aligned with the San Antonio Police Department, who came in second with roughly 20% of the vote.
Since the March primary, Clay-Flores has declined to debate her opponent, while Gonzalez has made inroads with neighborhood association leaders who are frustrated with Clay-Flores for supporting a public housing project they opposed.
Clay-Flores has the support of the Texas Organizing Project, which put some money behind her in the primary, and Gonzalez has the backing of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association of Bexar County, which gave to her campaign in the first round.
We’ll soon find out how much they’ve put into the runoff, after campaign finance reports are due May 20.
Texas’ 28th Congressional District
This district saw a deluge of spending from national Republicans as part of a bigger South Texas push in 2022. But longtime U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) carried the district by 13% that year, and Republicans moved on to better prospects elsewhere at the beginning of this election cycle.
So far they’ve kept to that plan even as Cuellar is now under indictment. Cuellar can choose to withdraw from the ballot until mid-August but says he fully plans to seek reelection this November.
From a field of four candidates, Republicans are now down to retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jay Furman, who took 45% of the vote in the primary, and businessman and rancher Lazaro Garza Jr., who took 27% of the vote.
Furman garnered some national media attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for his opposition to vaccine mandates for the military. He lives in Universal City and has been campaigning at local GOP events.
Garza’s website says he’s the son of migrant workers, graduated from Texas A&M University in Kingsville and previously worked as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch.
Bexar County’s 73rd Civil District Court
Bexar County voters are deciding between Elizabeth Martinez and Ana Laura Ramirez to become Democrats’ nominee for the 73rd Civil District Court.
The runoff winner will be unopposed in the November election, as no Republicans filed to run for any of the county’s district court seats this election cycle.
Martinez and Ramirez attacked one another during a three-way March primary race for the county’s only open bench seat. After Canales vacated the seat earlier this year, Abbott appointed Republican Marialyn Barnard to serve until a new judge is elected.
Texas’ 35th Congressional District
No shortage of Republicans signed up to run against U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Austin), whose oddly shaped district includes a wide chunk of northeast Austin, narrows down for a stretch along Interstate-35, then broadens back out in northeast and downtown San Antonio.
Casar, elected in 2022, is a former Austin city councilman and a leader in the Congressional Progressive Caucus who carried the bright blue district with 73% of the vote last election cycle.
From a field of five candidates, Republicans are now choosing between Michael Rodriguez, a retired military veteran who lives in Converse and took 27% of the vote in the primary, and Steven Wright, who served as a deputy sheriff in Kern County, California, and took 25% of the vote.
