As early voting begins in Texas’ March 5 primary, Republicans are reading the tea leaves on how an intense presidential election might impact a slate of local races in 2024, while Democrats are eyeing intraparty divides at the local level that could have a bigger impact on their races.
Republicans say they are anticipating the return of some of former President Donald Trump’s supporters who haven’t participated in elections since 2016, but it’s unclear what impact they might have on down-ballot races. Trump has swept the early states, but his last remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, made her case to voters in San Antonio Friday.
“There were a lot of people who had never voted before that were there to vote for Trump [in 2016], and they tended to be a lot of working-class people,” said Craig Murphy, a Republican strategist who works for local state House Reps. Steve Allison and John Lujan. “People like to make simple predictions about what’s going to happen [if they return to vote again this year], but it’s not a predictable thing.”
Conservative candidates are indeed hoping excitement about the presidential contest will help them make inroads this year in an overwhelmingly Democratic county that’s been steadily electing more conservative Republican officeholders.
In 2022, the party chose conservative Mark Dorazio to replace retiring moderate Republican state Rep. Lyle Larson. This year the GOP’s hardliners are targeting Allison, who drew criticism from Gov. Greg Abbott for opposing school vouchers, as well as U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who was censured by the state party over disagreements about guns and border security.
A third Republican officeholder, Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3), was favored by conservatives who helped elect him in 2022, but also faces a challenge this year from trucking company owner Chris Schuchardt, who wants Precinct 3’s commissioner to take a tougher stance against Democrats.
“The electorate on the Republican side, when they go to the ballot box, the calculus over the last several cycles has increasingly become, ‘Who is my most conservative option?'” said Elliott Griffin, a Republican strategist working for two insurgent candidates in Bexar County, Schuchardt and Marc LaHood, who is running against Allison.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategists are unsure what impact a lack of enthusiasm for giving President Joe Biden a second term might have on down-ballot races.
The Democratic primary ballot also includes the contest to determine who will run against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November. That race includes some high-profile candidates like U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio), but hasn’t generated the kind of interest strategists say is needed to draw out low-propensity voters.
Local Democratic contests could instead see a bigger influence this year from ongoing disagreements between the party’s old power brokers and newcomers who have found success in recent years.
That dynamic is on display in one of the county’s most unusual races, in which former Bexar County Commissioner Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez is seeking the Democratic nomination for constable in the precinct he once represented on Commissioners Court. Incumbent Constable Ruben Tejeda helped elect the current Precinct 1 Commissioner, Rebeca Clay-Flores, who defeated Rodriguez in 2020 and faces her own primary challenges as she seeks a second term.
“You have this infighting between the old and the new, with the new wanting changes,” Sharon Navarro, a political scientist who advises some local campaigns, said of Bexar County Democrats.
Navarro said that dynamic is only apparent to true party faithful, but with little motivating Democrats to get out to the polls this March, those voters will hold outsized influence in the primaries this year.
“In terms of outside voters, it’s not really on your radar. I don’t think they’re aware of it,” she said. “But with the newcomers and old-comers, there’s this consistent internal fighting.”
Early voting runs from Feb. 20 and through March 1. If a single candidate doesn’t receive at least 50% of the vote in the March 5 primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 28 runoff.
Here’s a closer look at the top races San Antonio Report editors and reporters are following:
23rd Congressional District
After years of being known as one of the nation’s toughest swing districts, Texas’ 23rd District was redrawn to favor Republicans after the 2020 census. This year, the main event is likely to be a five-way primary race.
With Trump’s help, Gonzales won a tough primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-Helotes) in 2020. But critics say Gonzales has since split with the party to vote in favor of same-sex marriage and gun safety and hasn’t been tough enough on immigration restrictions and border security.
Last year the state party censured him, allowing party officials to campaign against him in the primary. The effort was led by the Medina County GOP, whose president, Julie Clark, is among the Republicans running against Gonzales.
Despite failed efforts by the Bexar County Republican Party to censure Gonzales, who lives in San Antonio, it was among 15 county parties that affirmed the Medina County GOP’s censure, out of the 29 counties that are wholly or partially included in the state’s 23rd Congressional District.
Other candidates include firearms salesman Brandon Herrera, retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Victor Avila and Frank Lopez Jr., who chaired the Val Verde County Republican Party and ran as an independent last year.
Gonzales was reelected with 56% of the vote in 2022. He had raised about $2.7 million for his reelection race by the end of December and has in recent months forged a close relationship with new conservative U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Lee Bausinger, a project engineer at San Antonio Water System, and Santos Limon, a civil engineer from Del Rio, are seeking the Democratic nomination.
Texas House District 118
Two experienced Democrats are vying for the chance to challenge Lujan this November in one of the state’s few remaining political swing districts.
Lujan flipped the Southside seat for Republicans in a 2021 special election, then fended off Democrat Frank Ramirez in 2022 with 52% of the vote. Democrats put few resources into that race compared to the flood of ads supporting Lujan, and the district could get tougher for the incumbent in a presidential year.
Under its current boundaries, Biden would have carried the district by roughly 3 percentage points.
Candidates running for the Democratic nomination include Carlos Quezada, a former prosecutor who served as judge in Texas 289th District Court from 2018 to 2022. He lost his reelection race in the primary. Quezada has been endorsed by former state House representatives Tomas Uresti, Leo Pacheco and Joe Farias, as well as by former County Judge Nelson Wolff and Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4).
Kristian Carranza is a Democratic campaign organizer who grew up on the South Side and worked on a host of local and national races. She has served as a regional director for the Democratic National Committee and as national field director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She has the backing of Planned Parenthood Votes, the Latino Victory Fund and several labor unions, as well as civil rights leader Rosie Castro and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro.
Texas House District 121
Allison won a crowded primary to represent this Northside district in 2018 after then-Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced plans to retire.
In recent years, the business attorney surprised some old political allies by siding with conservatives on support for the state’s six-week abortion ban, a controversial new voting law, and a law to require transgender athletes to compete on teams that correspond to their sex at birth.
But Allison, a former president of the Alamo Heights Independent School District board, has long opposed the type of school voucher program Abbott wanted to implement this session. In November he was among 21 Republicans who joined Democrats in shutting down a plan to allow taxpayer money to fund private school tuition, making his race a hot target in the March primary.
In a three-way contest, Abbott endorsed LaHood, who ran unsuccessfully for Bexar County district attorney in 2022 and has brought on campaign help with ties to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have both campaigned on LaHood’s behalf, while House Speaker Dade Phelan and well-heeled outside groups have chipped in to defend Allison.
U.S. Army veteran Michael Champion is also challenging Allison, who was reelected with more than 55% of the vote in 2022.
Shekhar Sinha, a retired IT specialist, and Laurel Jordan Swift, an orthopedic device salesperson, are seeking the Democratic nomination.
Bexar County Precinct 1 commissioner
Clay-Flores was a political newcomer when she unseated Rodriguez, a long term incumbent, in 2018. The Brackenridge High School graduate returned home to San Antonio to work as a teacher after receiving degrees from Harvard and Princeton.
In her first term as commissioner, she has touted her efforts advocating for residents she says the court has long overlooked, including people struggling with mental health issues, underprivileged children and migrants.
Clay-Flores became close with Wolff, and her precinct continues to receive the largest share of the county’s capital spending. But she’s spent the past year at odds with Judge Peter Sakai’s plans to change the court’s relationship with county staff, including Wolff’s county manager, David Smith.
That dynamic has attracted criticism from opponents who say Clay-Flores’ behind-the-scenes approach contributes to un-Democratic decision-making practices at the county.
Clay-Flores recently brought on formal campaign staff for her reelection race and reported more than $500,000 in her campaign account on hand as of July.
Clay-Flores’s challengers include:
- Ernesto Arellano Jr., a South San Antonio ISD trustee who previously served as the board’s president
- Lawson Alaniz-Picasso, a communications professional who worked for former San Antonio City Councilman Roberto Treviño
- Anna Uriegas Bustamante, a Southside High School teacher who serves on the board of the Alamo Colleges District
- Ismael Garcia, a transportation specialist
- Amanda Gonzalez, the executive director of a nonprofit aligned with the San Antonio Police Department and former appointee to the Edgewood ISD board of managers
The winner will face Republican Lina Prado in a precinct that gave 64% of its vote to Democrat Beto O’Rourke and 36% to Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022.
Bexar County Precinct 1 constable
This revives an old Southside family political rivalry from the early 2000s that came back into play in 2020.
Ruben Tejeda was first elected Precinct 1’s constable in 1992. In 2004 he supported Chico Rodriguez for Precinct 1 commissioner in a race against his cousin, incumbent Commissioner Robert Tejeda, due to disagreements over constable pay.
Rodriguez won that race and served as commissioner until 2020, when Clay-Flores defeated him. Tejeda helped Clay-Flores in that race, amid disagreements with Rodriguez’s brother, then Justice of the Peace Ciro Rodriguez. The race is viewed as a revenge match by political watchers.
Bexar County Precinct 3 commissioner
Moody came to Commissioners Court through an unusual path in 2022. Trish DeBerry vacated the county’s only GOP-held seat to wage an unsuccessful campaign for county judge, and Wolff temporarily appointed Republican Marialyn Barnard as part of an effort to keep the seat out of the hands of conservatives.
Instead GOP precinct chairs surprised political watchers by choosing Moody, a Marine combat veteran who is deeply conservative but whose corporate background has lent itself to negotiating with a court of all Democrats. Moody won a special election to serve out the rest of DeBerry’s term and is now running for a full term in a precinct that Trump carried by less than a percentage point in 2020.
Moody faces a challenge from Schuchardt, who self-funded an unsuccessful mayoral bid last year and has made inroads with some regular party activists. Schuchardt had put $177,000 of his own money into the race as of Jan. 25, according to campaign finance reports.
Abbott has backed Moody in the contest, while Schuchardt picked up support from Republican Party of Bexar County Chairman Jeff McManus.
Democrats will be closely watching the GOP primary in this race. Their nominee, Susan Korbel, took 46% of the vote in a race against Moody in 2022 and is running opposed for the Democratic nomination.
County party chairs
Both Republicans and Democrats will elect a county party chair during the March primary. The position oversees local party operations, including candidate filing and primary elections, and the Democratic and Republican party chairs each hold a seat on the commission tasked with hiring the county elections administrator.
Both parties’ leadership races have drawn spirited disagreements in recent years, some of which are poised to reappear in 2024.
On the Democratic side, incumbent chair Monica Alcántara has held the role since 2018, when she unseated longtime party leader Manuel Medina, whose political allies still resent that loss. Alcántara has won tough reelection races since then, but critics say her efforts to tone down disagreements within the party have left local Democrats less visible than they ought to be.
Regular Democratic Party meetings, for example, are still held virtually — a holdover from COVID that some say is aimed more at keeping the chair’s critics quiet.
Alcántara faces a challenge this year from Sandragrace Martinez, a family counselor who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in District 7 last year and exceeded expectations in an expensive 2022 race for the Democrats’ nominee for Texas land commissioner.
On the Republican side, incumbent chair and outspoken Trump supporter Jeff McManus chose not to seek a second term after unseating former chair John Austin in a heated race last year. Austin was favored by Tony Gonzales as part of an effort to keep the party out of the hands of scandal-plagued leaders who came before him.
Less than a year into the role, McManus told the San Antonio Report he’d grown frustrated trying to manage the party’s warring factions. Under his leadership the party sought unsuccessfully to censure elected officeholders whom leaders deemed out-of-step with conservative values, including Gonzales and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
McManus’ departure opened up a three-way race for party chair, in which all of the candidates appear likely to take the party in a different direction from its current leader.
Candidates include Robert Flores, a former lobbyist who last year ran unsuccessfully for City Council in District 10; Kris Coons, the past president of the Bexar County Republican Women club; and Jacinto “Chinto” Martinez, a print shop owner who previously sought the GOP chairmanship.
This story has been updated to correct the titles held by Texas House District 121 hopeful Kristian Carranza.
