Monday Musings #53: 2026 Primary Election Edition
People, more of you turned out to vote, here and across Texas! Bravo. Looks like about 15% of the county’s 1,294,973 registered voters went to the polls. Media reports led me to expect an even higher number. Let’s hope it portends a robust November 3 turnout in the General Election.
Perhaps more registered voters are coming off the sidelines to participate in the process at a time when politics – local, state and national – has become a deeply partisan contact sport. Feelings are running strong on all sides about President Trump’s foreign policies and military interventions, about immigration, about the economy, about everything.
November 3 will be the real moment when we can accurately measure the county and the country’s support of or opposition to Trump, Republican control of both the Senate and the House, and how voters feel about the economy. Still, Democratic turnout was markedly stronger than Republican turnout yesterday, so you don’t need a weather vane to see which way the wind is blowing.
While all eyes are on election results, don’t forget we expect interesting City Council meetings on Wednesday and Thursday as Mayor Gina Jones and the 10 council members come together for the first time since Friday’s 9-1 vote to censure Jones for her pattern of inappropriate conduct in office. While the vote doesn’t carry the force of law in terms of accountability and punishment, it can be a humiliating and politically damaging experience for the censured officeholder. I’d like to see Jones spared the humiliation and any spectacle, but I do hope the strong signal sent by council members serves to humble her, and cause her to seriously re-examine her public temperament, communication style, and failure to date to build alliances and a working coalition.
The primary election was not without multiple consequential outcomes. Here are a few:
Bexar County Judge-Democratic
In the most-watched local race, former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg ousted incumbent Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai in a crushing 62-38% outcome. Nirenberg, expected to sweep easily into office in November, would be the second former mayor to become county judge. Nelson Wolff, who served as mayor from 1991-1995, held the county seat from 2001-2022.
U.S. Senate-Republican
In the most-watched statewide race, Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is heading to a runoff with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, edging him in Tuesday’s popular vote, but with a slim 43-40% advantage, Cornyn will have to attract more of third-place candidate Wesley Hunt’s 13% to stay in office for a third decade. It’s going to be a loud, expensive and nasty runoff, fueled by tens of millions of inside and outside dollars spent on both sides. Will Trump endorse? Only if he thinks he can pick the winner.
U.S. Senate-Democratic
Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin) opened up and held on to an early lead over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) with negligible support for a third candidate. With 51.8% of the total to Crockett’s 46.9%, it appears Talarcio will squeak by without a runoff. Polls suggested a closer contest that could have gone either way. A reminder that voters, not pollsters, decide outcomes. Many will see Talarico as the party’s best chance since 2001 to win a U.S. Senate race.
U.S. House District 23
Scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Tony Gonzalez finished first Tuesday, but he didn’t finish strongly enough to avoid a runoff against Brandon Herrera. With 15% of the vote going to two other candidates, Gonzalez’s 46-38% finish over Herrera does give him the edge.
House District 122
The effort by party zealots to “primary” incumbent Rep. State Rep. Marc LaHood backfired big time, with challenger David McArthur winning a meager 25% of the vote.
Host, bigcitysmalltown
Robert “Bob” Rivard is a veteran American journalist whose 46-year career has taken him across Texas, Latin America, and beyond. He co-founded the Rivard Report (later named the San Antonio Report) with his wife, Monika Maeckle, in 2012, building it into the city’s leading nonprofit news organization before retiring in 2022.
Bob has worked for five Texas newspapers, beginning his career on the border at the Brownsville Herald, then moving to the Corpus Christi Caller, the Dallas Times-Herald, and later serving as a foreign correspondent and chief of correspondents for Newsweek. He returned to Texas as senior editor of the San Antonio Light before becoming executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News (1997–2011).
His journalism has earned widespread recognition, including being named Editor & Publisher’s “Editor of the Year” in 2000 and receiving the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia University for his reporting on Latin America and the U.S.-Mexico border.
He is the author of Trail of Feathers, a nonfiction book chronicling the disappearance and murder of journalist Philip True in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. The book, published by Public Affairs in 2005, was widely reviewed, excerpted in Esquire, and selected by People magazine as one of five recommended nonfiction works that year.
Bob now hosts bigcitysmalltown, a podcast featuring the people shaping San Antonio’s future. He and Monika live in Southtown, where she runs the Texas Butterfly Ranch blog and previously founded the annual San Antonio Monarch Butterfly and Pol…Read More
