Despite a flood of spending by a political action committee (PAC) tied to Gov. Greg Abbott, mayoral candidate Rolando Pablos fell 8 points short of closing the deal with Alamo City voters Saturday night.
It was a resounding Republican defeat in a much-watched race, but political observers said they don’t expect to see Abbott and Texas GOP end their efforts to back local candidates in San Antonio and other blue Texas cities.
A former Texas secretary of state under Abbott, Pablos ran as a fiscal conservative and pulled in some $630,000 from the Texas Economic Fund PAC, which is run by the son of Abbott’s chief political strategist. The candidate used much of that money to fund attack ads targeting Jones in the countdown to Saturday’s runoff.
“I think this was a test case to see how well [Texas Republicans] would do backing a conservative candidate in a relatively blue county,” UTSA political science professor Jon Taylor said. “I suspect this is a learning experience that they’re going to try to build on in another blue city.”
Taylor said he expects Abbott and the Texas Economic Fund will next turn their sights on Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat representing the Houston area. Hidalgo’s Republican challenger, Aliza Dutt, has already attracted veteran GOP staffer Cabell Hobbs as her campaign manager.
While Pablos failed to make a mark citywide, Taylor said his Republican backers are likely to see his strong showing in affluent North Side suburbs such as Stone Oak as something to build on. Since a voter-approved revamp of the city charter increased San Antonio mayors’ terms to four years, Abbott and his crew will have a few years to hone their game.
“Their strategy seemed to be paying off in certain parts of town, but it just wasn’t enough to get him over the finish line,” Taylor said. “I’m guessing they’re already looking at the data to see what they do differently in 2026.”
Despite Jones’ victory, observers said the Republican Party is likely to view its 2024 success with Texas Latinos as cause to continue pumping money into San Antonio.
Exit polls suggest Trump lassoed 55% of the state’s Latino vote in 2024, up 13 points from the prior presidential election. Around 2022, the Republican National Committee targeted South Texas with a multimillion-dollar outreach, which the group billed as its largest Texas outlay in its history.
“I don’t see them leaving,” veteran San Antonio Democratic campaign consultant Laura Barberena said of Abbott and the state GOP. “I think they’re going to continue their work courting Latinos by somehow convincing them the Republican Party has their best interest in mind.”
Some in the state GOP are also likely to look at conservative Misty Spears’ win of outgoing District 9 Councilman John Courage’s seat as a victory attributable to Republican turnout driven by Pablos, Barberena said. With Spears on council, the the number of conservatives on the dais will jump from one to two.
“They understand that a strong name at the top of the ticket creates a wave for the Republicans lower down on the ballot,” Barberena said.
Still, Barberena said she expects to see Abbott and the Republicans tinkering with the formula before they make another foray into a San Antonio citywide election. Beyond finding a candidate with stronger name recognition, they might try running a Latina or start spending money earlier in the race.
One thing Barberena said she’s all but certain of is that the next Abbott-backed candidate to pursue the mayoral office will be more willing than Pablos to pledge allegiance to the MAGA brand.
“I think they’ll run someone who’s more overtly MAGA,” Barberena said. “But that’s also a double-edged sword. That kind of candidate gets the Republican base out, but it also gets out the Democratic base. I think this whole election shows that the end of nonpartisan [San Antonio city] elections is over. In a post-Trump era, everything is partisan to the extreme.”
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This article appears in May 29 – Jun 11, 2025.
