Welcome to a new special, The Voters Guide for November's midterm elections.

I'm Randy Beemer, along with Andrea Drudge, the government reporter for the San Antonio Report.

And we're going to go through some of the races, maybe pin down what you don't know about some of the candidates and where you vote, because there's been a lot of redistricting that's going to change some things for people want to take note of the candidates, their key issues.

Then we will also look at some basic voting information.

Well, also, we want to mention that you have in the San Antonio report a voter guide.

Yes.

So all of this you can find online and more about these candidates, mini profiles on every candidate on the county ballot.

And we want to start with the statewide races.

We're going to start with the governor's race.

Greg Abbott, the Republican incumbent, and Gina from Austin, the Democrat.

So we've had the same top leaders in Texas for a long time now.

And Greg Abbott, he's elected to another fourth year term.

He will be the longest serving governor in Texas.

Abbott is a prolific fundraiser.

Democrats were not exactly clamoring to get in this race.

In fact, they sort of tried to organize themselves at the beginning of the cycle, and no one jumped into this race.

Yeah, there was talk of trying to get him in this race.

And Gina Hinojosa is a state lawmaker from the Austin area who wound up as their nominee and has not raised a ton of money for this race, but is running kind of a wonky campaign about her experience in the legislature, particularly surrounding the voucher issue, school vouchers and her.

Her issue.

Also, she wants to give a $1,500 payment to each Texas household out of the rainy day fund that she called.

Out of her corruption fund.

A lot of her campaign is based around her sort of experiences observing what she thinks is corruption in the Texas legislature, but but a tough race.

But we elect our governor and our most of our statewide positions in midterm years, and this happens to be a year that Democrats think could be good for them.

The party out of power typically does well.

Party out of power in the white House typically does well in a midterm.

And some Democrats look at this as their their best chance in a long time.

Also think it's a little closer.

And Greg Abbott has made some moves in terms of data centers.

He is distancing himself from that.

Just recently got into the university having three year degrees, which other states just had.

Georgia had one and then came out right after that.

He wants those here.

So he's trying to make, I guess you would say, more centrist moderate appeals than the culture wars.

Yeah.

Texas Republicans generally have more to fear from their right flank than a general election.

And when you see races tightening, then you start to see some more broad appeal moves like changing his tune on data centers and also sort of speaking to more locally, the voters in the outskirts of San Antonio about municipally owned utilities and and running like real campaigns here.

And we also want to mention libertarian candidates.

Pat Dixon, they chose their candidates and the Green Party at conventions.

But those are basically the two other candidates that you'll see on the ballot.

Independence.

They had to raise a lot of signatures.

So it's not going to be a long ballot in terms of each race.

But those third party is the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.

They have to maintain.

They have to get at least 2% or so in these races to, to maintain party status, or else.

Then they also have to jump through more hoops to keep candidates on the ballot.

And now moving on to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the Republican Vicky Goodwin, also out of Austin, the Democrat.

Super powerful position in Texas oversees the Texas Senate.

Democrats were considering trying something new here.

They had a competitive primary where they tried to run somebody from the steelworkers union and their voters that went to a runoff, but their voters wound up choosing a traditional candidate from the legislature, Vicky Goodwin.

The progressive movement we have seen across the country didn't work here.

Well, more like if it was a progressive versus like insider outsider attempt there.

But but Democrats didn't wind up going with that in these races.

And this is a race where we do have a libertarian and a Green Party candidate, Anthony Christo and Kevin McCormick.

And interestingly, both of them have backgrounds teaching in the San Antonio area.

We're going to move on to the US Senate now.

Ken Paxton, James, Toriko gotten a lot of publicity, a lot of money across the country.

Ted Brown, the Libertarian this one is maybe the closest statewide.

This is definitely our marquee race on the ballot.

When when the group of Democrats tried to get together and sort themselves into races.

Everyone wanted the Senate race because there's so much interest in control of the Senate.

There's a belief that maybe the Senate, even though Republicans have a big majority, that the Senate could be in play this year.

The Democrats have a few different paths, but Texas is is a big part of that.

And then you had this insane Senate primary between the incumbent, John Cornyn and Ken Paxton that pulled so many resources here and continues to pull resources to Texas in what Republicans at one point would have described a nightmare scenario that there Trump is in town raising money for Paxton.

He had about $2 million in his campaign account.

Talarico is raising $50 million.

This young state lawmaker from the Austin area who taught school here in San Antonio and is big on social media.

Republicans didn't want Paxton.

But now Trump has come here and promised to come back.

And Trump had promised to stay out of that race and then at the last minute jumped in for Paxton, who won that primary by just an astounding margin against John Cornyn.

Run won the primary runoff by an astounding margin.

And really, I think many believe had a huge impact down ballot on the other runoffs that were still going on at that point, that Trump's endorsement sort of kept the more moderate Republicans home.

They thought it was a lost cause.

And so now you have this race that Republicans are spending big in, whether or not it goes their way or not.

That's resources that many think should be going elsewhere on the map.

And speaking of endorsement of Trump Attorney General race, Maes Middleton called himself Maes maga Middleton, the Republican, Nathan Johnson, the Democrat Tom Oxford libertarian.

Also in that race.

This was our first opening on the statewide positions this cycle that Paxton moves over to the Senate race, and you have this bunch of ambitious, like, prominent candidates on the Republican side that jumped in, including Mace Middleton from the Texas Senate and gas lawyer from Galveston, very conservative, known for his social views.

And then Chip Roy jumps in and those two wind up in a runoff together, and one that seemed to be tightening at the end of the runoff and then pulls it off in a big way.

And controller, we have Don Huff, who had run against Greg Abbott a few years ago.

Greg Abbott didn't endorse him in the primary, running against Sarah Eckhardt, the Democrat, and she left the Green Party as well as Alonzo Garza, the libertarian.

This is one of the other things that happened on the primary was this four way race for the comptroller position, and it was open because the governor had moved the incumbent over to a university position.

When Ben Hagar over to head over to Texas Tech.

And then he installed a state senator in that spot, and a special election to replace that state senator in a very red district went Democrats way, gave them a lot of optimism about this cycle.

Abbott's candidate didn't make it through the primary.

His old primary opponent, Donna Finesse, makes it through the primary land.

Commissioner Don Buckingham, Republican Benjamin Flores, Democrat.

In this race, Neil Snyder, the libertarian Don Buckingham made some headlines here with Kate Rogers kind of pushing her out as the Alamo Trust president and CEO.

Yeah, this is kind of a low key race, but it's interesting to us here locally because of the impact that it has on the Alamo and the way the Alamo has been treated by land commissioners past.

Don Buckingham, somebody who is viewed with some potentially bigger ambitions, was a former state senator from the Austin area outside the Alamo.

CEO Kate Rogers over wokeness in the telling of the Alamo story, she has a challenger.

There was a competitive Democratic primary in that race when she has a challenger who's a Bay City councilman, Benjamin Flores.

And also a farmer.

It's going to be an interesting race.

AG Commissioner Clayton Tucker, the Democrat, against Nate Sheets, the Republican who Abbott was.

Was he endorsing sheets or not?

Yeah.

So this is our third then race in which there's no incumbent in a statewide race, which is so unusual.

And it's because you had the governor come in and endorse this challenger, Nate Sheets, over the sitting AG commissioner, who has had Sid Miller, who's had kind of a controversial history.

And so now you have this race between a sort of environmentalist, Clayton Tucker, farmer, ag guy, environmentalist against Nate Sheets owned Honey Company.

And also two other candidates, Alfred Mullis and Junior Green Party.

Austin are Kelly libertarian again one of those races that could, you know, make a difference in these races.

Railroad commissioner another fascinating race both French the Republican and controversial John Rosenthal, the Democrat, and Arthur de Bianca, libertarian.

Three seats on the railroad commission.

And this one was up.

This time you had an incumbent, Jim.

Right.

The last minute, Abbott was taking right around campaigning with him, but loses to Bo French this Tarrant County Republican Party chair, businessman who has also a controversial history.

Republicans have his own parties.

Republicans have distanced themselves in the past.

This is all about culture wars for him, even though railroad commissioner has nothing to do with railroads.

It's all about all and gas regulation.

Which he is closely connected to.

Yes.

And his and his Democratic opponent is also considered an expert on this.

And that's how he's running and.

Ignoring the state legislature.

Right.

All right.

I want to move on to the Congressional district.

Quinn Castro in the 20th.

Democrat incumbent Edgardo Baez, a Republican.

43% of Bexar County is in a different district this year because of the redrawn congressional districts, and that only applied to the congressional districts, not to the state legislative districts.

This was because Republicans are headed into this midterm election with a tiny majority in the House.

And Trump ask for this.

For this.

They approve these new maps, hoping to squeeze a few more Republicans out of Texas in this part of the state that has seen more political change than anywhere else in the.

Country, so close to half of people in Bexar County may be surprised to see when they show up at the voting booth who they're running for.

District there.

Because all of our because because Bexar County was really at the center of this.

We went from five members of Congress representing this area to four.

We now our delegation has been very blue.

It is now likely to be more red than blue.

We have three districts that are drawn very red and one this Texas 20th district, Castro's, which also moved.

It used to be a West side district.

Now it's more of the entire urban center has a lot of new voters.

Congressional district 21 Mark to share a Republican former baseball player, Kristen Hook, the Democrat in this race.

Yeah.

So I think there was a hope also among some that when Antonio was reading that it would end up with some more San Antonio centric districts, and then this one didn't end up going that way.

It's this is Chip Roy's district, and it ended up cutting out part of its Austin part and reaching more into Bexar County, but wound up choosing Mark Tachira, who in a very crowded primary had all of the money and attention, lives on the very northern edge of that district.

But, you know, a political newcomer, Kristen Hook, who ran here the last time.

She's a biological scientist who moved back from DC during the pandemic, I believe.

23rd Congressional District Katie Padilla Stout, Democrat Brandon Herrera, the AK 47 guy, Republican.

And Ben Mendoza, the independent.

Yeah, this is this huge district that used to be fought over by both parties every year.

Hasn't changed much in the redistricting this time.

But Tony Gonzalez, our incumbent congressman, no longer in this district because of a scandal.

And so there is no current Congress member for this district because the governor didn't want to recall a special election, afraid that a Republican would lose.

Have struggled in some special elections recently.

And so it's still a very red district that Trump would have carried by about 14 percentage points.

But you have this young Brandon Herrera who ran against Tony Gonzalez in the primary.

He's a YouTuber, a content creator, has all kinds of things out there on the internet.

Versus Katy Padilla Stout, a child welfare attorney and teacher, first time candidate, not well known, but Democrats were certain that they wanted to get somebody in that race in case things went the way that they did.

And now national Democrats have reserved ads there this fall.

Republicans are not sure that they believe that race is competitive yet, but they have embraced Brandon Herrera when just a few years ago, even just earlier in this cycle, they were warning people not to support him.

35th Congressional District.

Here, Carlos de la Cruz, the Republican, and Johnny Garcia, who works in the sheriff's office here right now as a Democrat.

This race is the whole enchilada.

According to House speaker Mike Johnson, this is sort of at the center of the efforts here to to squeeze more Republicans out of Texas, this new district.

This would have been Greg Casares district stretching all the way from Austin to the urban centers of San Antonio, totally reshaped, placed on San Antonio's southeast side as this Republican pickup opportunity that Trump would have carried by ten percentage points.

And yet, of all of our ambitious Republicans in this area, John Lujan jumped in there, the state lawmaker from this area, because it totally encompassed his district and that sort of kept some other folks out.

But then he goes on to lose this primary runoff against a total newcomer, Carlos de la Cruz, who is an Air Force veteran whose sister represents part of that district.

She's Monica de la Cruz.

She represents the more rural parts of it.

He had a Trump endorsement, but was virtually unseen in this part of the district until the primary runoff.

And we see a lot of veterans.

I should mention, as you look across the spectrum of the ballot, on the ballot for both Democrats and Republicans.

Well, this would be the first time that Bexar County has.

If Carlos de la Cruz didn't win, it would be the first time.

Bear County hasn't had a veteran in its delegation in a long time, which I think is on some people's minds this election.

But this 35th congressional race had is I think both parties now are fighting over it really hard.

It's one of the two that are being targeted pretty heavily this cycle.

And three other three other competitive congressional districts in the area, South Texas, we have 15, 28 and 34.

Start with 15.

This one's get a lot of attention because the singer Bobby Pulido is the Democrat, Monica de la Cruz the Republican.

Right.

This is a district that changed significantly.

And Monica de la Cruz represents part of Texas 35 right now.

Her district changed a lot.

Are brothers running Bobby Pulido was big recruit for Democrats in that race.

And then next to that, you've got Henry Cuellar, who used to be representing this part of the in Texas 28, used to stretch up to here, lost the Bexar County portion of his district, was intended to make his district a little more competitive for Republicans.

So this one is going to be more competitive because Cuellar is well, he's been I don't want to say damaged, but he's had some history this time.

Like Ken Paxton, he's been absolved of his legal troubles before this race.

The president insinuated that he was hoping he would switch parties.

He's a long term moderate Democrat.

Pardoned him.

And pardoned him and hoped that he would switch parties.

And now he's he's not done that.

So he's a tough race on his hands though.

Texas 34.

We have the Cynthia Gonzalez against Eric Flores the Republican and Eddie Espinosa the Green Party.

Chris Royal, libertarian.

This is the heart of the battle for the House this cycle.

These South Texas districts that Republicans are hoping to hold on to the gains that Trump made in 2024, while Republicans while Democrats think that that's could slip away just as easy as it came their way.

None of the Texas Senate districts first.

19 Roland Gutierrez, incumbent Democrat and Republican Marcos Cardenas.

So where Bexar County is divided into four Texas Senate districts and three of them are up this year, they serve staggered terms.

The one Republican, Donna Campbell, not up.

This one is maybe the most interesting of our Texas Senate races that are up this time.

Marcus Cardenas is had the endorsement of the governor, Roland Gutierrez, enemy of the governor and the lieutenant governor.

There was an appetite to put somebody up against him this cycle.

And so sort of an interesting race unfolding there.

A little more emotion, a little more personal, a. Little person, that one.

And now, Texas Senate District 21, Julie Dahlberg, the Republican against longtime Senate Democrat Judith Safarik.

Yeah, this is a huge district that Judith has held for a long time, but a fairly blue district.

But she has a Republican challenger who's run before.

And in Senate District 26, Jose Menendez, the Democrat, didn't get a challenger.

I believe in the primary and now didn't get a Republican challenger in the general.

But Julian Villarreal from the Green Party.

Is yeah, interesting dynamics there that no challengers until this Green Party candidate comes along who has run before in this same district, a young civil engineer from this area.

Very blue district there.

Texas House district 116 again.

Trey Martinez Fischer, the Democrat against Rosenqvist.

Smith running now is a Republican.

Ben Most Republican challenging another longtime House member Philip Cortez.

Yeah.

Philip Cortez, you drew a Democratic challenger this year because he wasn't a part of the quorum break.

But again, a tough district.

Republicans Texas House district 118.

This one is interesting a little closer.

Jorge Borrego the Republican, and Christine Carranza, the Democrat in this race.

Yeah, this is viewed as probably the most competitive Texas House district in the state.

This is John Lujan district.

At one point, he was the only Republican who had carried it.

He'd run above the top of the ticket.

That changed last cycle.

Trump actually carried this district, too.

But Lujan went out and recruited a successor when he moved over to the congressional race.

And and that successor did not succeed in the primary.

He was a trial lawyer.

And there's the dynamics of.

The trial lawyers.

Tyler's were challenged by.

The Texans Velocity Reform, the business group that spent tons of money against trial lawyer candidates this time.

And so you wound up with these two young candidates, Christian Carranza, who ran last cycle.

She's a longtime political operative who worked for Wendy Davis, has worked on lots of campaigns and then launched her own campaign for the first time.

Last cycle lost to Lujan is back again.

She raised a ton of money in that race.

And then Jorge Braga, who worked for the Texas Public Policy Foundation doing education policy, who made it out of the Republican primary with the help of the Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

He was involved in Texas of the voucher program.

This is an interesting race because it's fresh candidates.

We haven't had very much turnover in any of these races in a long time, and we have two young candidates in this race, and one of them is already George Braga, already experiencing some pushback for.

Senior 16 year old tweets.

Weren't weren't not great at first.

Said I was 16, then said actually, I'm sorry for these tweets.

Nature attack ads.

Yeah, that's what we're going to see.

Yeah.

And we have some fresh candidates this time.

So we're going to see some new stuff.

House district 119 Elizabeth Compost, the Democrat.

Melva Rivera Perez a Republican.

Yeah.

This district is sort of in the mix of you've got 118 and in Texas 35.

That congressional district in the state House district overlapping this one also sort of overlaps in that congressional districts.

That's so contested.

It's it's a bluish district, but it's, you know, in the mix of like this nexus of all of the politics that are happening, it's important to the Senate race.

It's important to that congressional district.

It's important to these state legislative races.

And it may affect the turn in that race, I guess, down ballot.

Texas House district 121.

Mark LaHood, the incumbent Republican, Zach Dunn, the Democrat.

It was an interesting primary on the Republican.

Side of the 12 races that Democrats are targeting, and they're getting some national help this year.

This is on their list of, you know, should have been should be some of their most competitive territory.

But Democrats have tried and tried here and not succeeded.

And they've hoped that if this seat shifted right, that they would have more of a chance.

But Mark LaHood unseated Steve Allison for that seat.

With the governor's help last.

Time, last time.

Now he's running for a second term, and he faced a more moderate challenger in the primary.

And and lots of money spent there.

But Michael Hood succeeded.

And now he has a new Democratic challenger this year, Zach Dunn, a prosecutor in the county district attorney's office.

This is still a race district that Democrats look at and say it ought to be competitive for us, and they're getting help from national groups that are so angry about the redistricting that happened at the federal level and are looking at perhaps Texas goes back and draws its districts again and touches the legislative districts and feeling like they need to get involved now that now is their time to.

Make it had been more competitive and had been more moderate.

The Joe Strauss, Steve Allison.

Yeah, Republicans made it a little safer for themselves.

And then the incumbent lost to a challenger.

Texas House district 122 mark.

Republican Shelley Nichols, Democrat.

Is another race that sort of the revenge of the moderates.

They tried to run somebody against Mark, an old Bexar County party chair who has pushed the party to the right his whole career.

But this is the old Lyle Larson district, and he has a challenger this year, Shelley Nichols, who's a medical director.

Texas House district 124.

Jose Garcia, the Democrat.

Sylvia Soto, Republican.

This race also another blue district for Republicans.

Sylvia Soto, kind of an interesting candidate who's a teacher.

And there's a number of teachers.

Yeah, we have a lot of educator candidates.

This time, I should say, in the House districts and down ballot even more.

They're not running the culture war races from the Republican side as they are at the top of the ticket.

Well.

Which I think is because we're bluer.

Or so much has changed in the education landscape that had to do with the state.

And every other election has been sort of warning about school vouchers.

And now school vouchers have happened and you see candidates sort of responding to that and the other changes and, and no one, perhaps more so than this next race, which is our one open seat on the map.

125 Ricardo Martinez, Republican and Reyna Democrat.

This is Ray Lopez retiring out of the seat.

And you had a crowded Democratic primary, including the former constable, Michelle, very.

But the Democrats nominated a young essayist, a union leader, Adrian Reyna, whose dad had had this seat before, Rick Martinez, who owns a lighting company.

Bexar County District Attorney Ashley Foster, the Republican, lose the Lane of Chiapas.

The Democrat and Jason Wolf is running this time.

He had been a Republican before his running as an independent.

Well, and so setting the scene, you have all of these statewide races.

It's almost Texas has Republicans have dominated all of those for 30 years.

They controlled the Texas House.

They controlled the Texas Senate.

There's questions about whether even if Democrats won all of their targets, they could flip the Texas House.

Then you come down to Bexar County, where Democrats have only gotten stronger.

And it's there.

It's sort of one party control here.

Republicans are on the verge of extinction.

You had competitive races in 2022 or, you know, you had spirited races in 2022.

Tricia Berry gives up her seat to run for county judge.

This time around, there was a scrambling for candidates to find candidates.

And there haven't been Republican judges in a while.

Right?

Jason?

Wolf, every you know, Jason Wolf is one of those Republican judges who was swept out.

So then you've got you were electing all of our countywide, almost all of our countywide offices and two of our commissioners this year.

And but the, you know, a lot of the energy and the money went into the primary on the Democratic side, you had.

Ron Nuremberg, the Democrat.

Starting at the top of the ticket.

You've got this county judge race, Peter Sakai in there for one term and loses to former Mayor Ron Naumburg.

And then he faces a race against Patrick von Dolan, a long time conservative activist.

But Patrick von Dolan would even say he was hoping to recruit somebody bigger for this race.

And it didn't wind up happening.

So he got in at the last minute on the Republican side.

And Commissioner.

Precinct two Justin Rodriguez, Democrat, incumbent.

David Sherwood Hill, Republican.

We have two of our commissioners up this year, Justin Rodriguez and Tommy Calvert.

Tommy Calvert didn't draw a Republican challenger, or he's the longest serving of the bunch.

And and then winds up with an independent challenger, Roy Anthony the third, who ran for city council last time around.

And then another open race in the district attorney position, another big county wide office.

Joe Gonzalez is retiring a Democrat, and you have a Democrat who doesn't have a prosecutorial background versus Ashley Parker or Republican who's a prosecutor and who has been a prosecutor.

And and then you have a third party candidate, Jason Wolf, a former Republican running as an independent who's who was swept out with the other Republican judges and has said that.

Yeah.

Who has said that this is maybe the more reasonable path for somebody like him these days.

As Bexar County is blue bluer, and voters in the city of San Antonio are also going to be asked about the future of the city's pre-K for, say, program.

It's funded through 2029.

They want to extend that eighth of a cent tax.

I think it is for another 20 years.

And that will be one of many school funding measures, so many changes to school funding at the state legislative landscape.

But we'll have five districts in this area, including South San San Antonio ISD and Northside ISD, asking voters to either for a tax increase or a bond election this year.

And some voting information for you if you're voting by mail, has to be postmarked locally by November 3rd and again in the voting booth.

You can take notes with you, but you can't use your cell phone for more information on candidates and voting as well.

Deadlines.

You can find it online at the nonpartisan website.

Vote for one 1.org and Election day is November 3rd.

I'm Randy Beemer, along with Andrea of San Antonio.

Report, where you can find her information at.

San Antonio Report.

And you have a great voters guide there as well.

Everything you need.

Everything you need to know.

She knows it, wrote about it.

Thank you for doing that.

And remember, your vote does count November 3rd, Election Day.

Again, thank you for joining us.