Gina Ortiz Jones (D) headed to runoff in San Antonio mayoral race
Gina Ortiz Jones, the openly LGBTQ former Under Secretary of the Air Force, won 27.2 percent of the ballots cast in a 27-way-race for mayor of San Antonio, on Saturday, May 3, making her the top vote-getter and sending her into a runoff for the seat with former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos. Pablos came in a distant second in Saturday’s balloting with about 16.61 percent of the vote.
Jones has been endorsed by the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.
As San Antonio Current pointed out, this is the first San Antonio mayoral race since 2009 not to feature an incumbent, and in addition to the 27 candidates, this race was noticeable for the “influx of hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside cash. …
“Despite raising more than $500,000 and engaging in a vigorous boots-on-the-ground campaign, tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano came in third with roughly 12 percent of the vote. Of the five current and former City Council members in the race, only District 4’s Adriana Rocha Garcia broke the 10 percent threshold,” according to the Current.
SA Current also notes that neither Jones or Pablos has worked previously in San Antonio city government, with Jon Taylor, a political scientist with the University of Texas at San Antonio, telling the Current, “The big picture observation is that the voters thought that outsiders with no city council experience were preferable to sitting and former city council members.”
https://dallasvoice.com/lesbian-candidate-places-first-in-san-antonio-mayoral-race-faces-june-17-runoff/