The Midweek #79: Candidates Make Their Case for Your Vote in November
While Republican candidate Carlos De La Cruz for the newly redrawn Congressional District 35 was in Dallas for the party convention hosting President Donald Trump, his Democratic opponent, Bexar County Sheriff's Deputy Johnny Garcia, was in the bigcitysmalltown podcast studio.
De La Cruz has also been invited, and we hope he accepts. Even if he declines, we will share the Garcia episode with our audience in the coming weeks as the Nov. 3 midterm Election approaches, with early voting running Oct. 19-30. If past elections are an accurate indicator, the majority of votes will be cast before Election Day.
We promote civic engagement, particularly people exercising their constitutional right to vote. Voters who qualify have until Oct. 23 to request a ballot, either by calling the Bexar County Elections Department at 210-335-8683 or downloading a ballot from the elections website.
Residents who wish to register to vote have until Oct. 5. Unfortunately, Texas does not allow online registration. You can get everything you need to fill out an application to mail to the county elections department here. A list of early voting sites will be posted here before Oct. 19.
We have not invited all candidates to the podcast, but we have selected several key races: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott seeking a record fourth term and his Democratic opponent and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa; and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and state Rep. James Talarico, both seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by lame duck incumbent John Cornyn.
We are not inviting candidates in races deemed not competitive, such as the race for Bexar County judge between Democrat Ron Nirenberg, the former San Antonio mayor, and Republican Patrick Von Dohlen, who has lost three City Council races in District 9, most recently in 2021 to then-Councilman John Courage.
While we anticipate airing a number of candidate interviews before Nov. 3, we will continue to post video and audio interviews with other important and interesting individuals through the end of the year.
Let’s hope Texas lives up to expectations and enjoys a robust voter turnout for the midterm elections. As outside dark money plays an increasingly influential role in closely contested national and state elections, and as Trump and other Republican supporters sow unfounded doubts about the reliability of the nation’s elections, pessimism about the state of democracy is on the rise. A successful election can change that.
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
