Gina Ortiz Jones Elected as San Antonio’s First LGBTQ Mayor
The Air Force veteran also makes history as first Asian-American woman and first female war veteran to lead a major Texas city.
Gina Ortiz Jones was elected mayor of San Antonio in a runoff election on June 7.
The victory was historic, as Jones is not only San Antonio’s first out LGBTQ mayor but the first Asian-American female mayor of a major city in Texas and the first female mayor in Texas to have served in a war.
(She’s a former Air Force officer and Iraq War veteran who previously served as Under Secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration.)
Jones is also the first mayor since 2005 to not have previously served on the city council and will serve a four-year term.
The race was watched closely by political operatives who saw the potential for the GOP to gain control of the mayor’s office for the first time in more than 20 years, citing Donald Trump’s electoral gains in last year’s presidential election, particularly among the city’s Hispanic residents.
Jones defeated former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, a Republican closely aligned with anti -LGBTQ Gov. Greg Abbott, by a margin of 54.3% to 45.7%. Her win is the narrowest margin of victory by a winning candidate since the 2019 mayoral race.
According to The New York Times, at one point during the campaign, Pablos accused Jones of appropriating the last name Ortiz to appeal to Latino voters, when in fact many Filipinos have Spanish surnames and middle names due to Spain’s colonization of the nation.
She rejected the accusation as “racist” and expressed pride in her cultural identity.
Jones, the daughter of a single mother who immigrated from the Philippines, focused her campaign on expanding early childhood education, increasing job opportunities for unskilled workers, and addressing the city’s housing affordability crisis. Before the election, she also voiced a strong commitment to fighting poverty in the working-class city, where an estimated one in five residents lives below the poverty line.
“San Antonio showed up and showed out,” Jones said of her victory. “We reminded them that our city is about compassion and it’s about leading with everybody in mind.”
Evan Low, the president and CEO of LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, shared a post on X praising Jones’ victory, saying the organization was “beaming with pride” at her success.
.@VictoryFund board chair Joe Falk was there on election night to see our very own @GinaOrtizJones become the next Mayor of San Antonio, Texas!
We are absolutely beaming with pride🌈! #victoryfund pic.twitter.com/QRRHUF1FI6
— Evan Low (@Evan_Low) June 8, 2025
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