{"id":1013818,"date":"2026-08-21T00:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1013818\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T00:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:05:15","slug":"whats-on-the-november-midterm-ballot-in-bexar-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1013818\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s on the November midterm ballot in Bexar County?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas is slated to host a buzzy U.S. Senate race, governor\u2019s race, high-profile congressional matchups<\/a>, state legislative contests<\/a> and county-level races on the Nov. 3 midterm ballot.<\/p>\n

The ballot was set for these races earlier this summer, and you can read about all of the candidates in the San Antonio Report\u2019s 2026 Voter Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of this week, the window is also now officially closed for cities, counties and school districts seeking to place measures on the same ballot.<\/p>\n

Of the\u00a0three ideas<\/a>\u00a0San Antonio leaders discussed taking to voters, only one wound up making the cut:\u00a0A\u00a0Pre-K 4 SA reauthorization<\/a>\u00a0that would keep the popular program funded for another 20 years.<\/p>\n

Five San Antonio-area school districts are also putting\u00a0education funding measures<\/a>\u00a0on the November ballot \u2014 when they hope to capitalize on high turnout from other contests.<\/p>\n

Filing closed Monday for a handful of nonpartisan races also up this November, including local school districts and positions on the Bexar Central Appraisal District\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

The voter registration deadline for this election is Oct. 5 and early voting runs Oct. 19 through Oct. 30.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an early look at what Bexar County voters can expect to see on the Nov. 3 ballot.<\/p>\n

Pre-K for SA<\/p>\n

The\u00a0landmark tuition-free early childhood education program<\/a>\u00a0started under then-Mayor Juli\u00e1n Castro is funded by a one-eighth-cent sales tax that requires periodic reauthorization from voters. The current funding doesn\u2019t expire until 2029, but City Council wants to get ahead of it, and take advantage of high Democratic enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Past reauthorizations have been for a shorter period of time, but this time they\u2019re asking voters to<\/a> extend the funding for an unprecedented 20 years before it needs another public vote.<\/p>\n

School funding measures<\/p>\n

Many San Antonio-area school districts face\u00a0budget deficits<\/a> this year, driven by rising costs and the state\u2019s increasing limits on how public schools can collect and use money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three of them, East Central ISD, South San Antonio ISD and Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD, are going out for voter-approval tax rate elections (VATREs), which increase taxes to generate local funds that districts can use however they want. <\/p>\n

Voters in two districts, San Antonio ISD and Northside ISD, will be asked to approve both a tax rate election and bond measures. <\/p>\n

Bonds are used to pay off debt related to infrastructure projects, like building, renovating and purchasing new technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

School board races<\/p>\n

East Central<\/a>, Edgewood<\/a>, South San Antonio<\/a> and Somerset<\/a> ISD are expected to hold school board elections on the Nov. 3 ballot. They each elect about half of their board seats at a time.<\/p>\n

Other San Antonio-area districts elect school board members in May, or in November of odd-numbered years.<\/p>\n

Bexar Central Appraisal District board<\/p>\n

Two years ago Texas added elected positions to the boards of county appraisal districts \u2014 aimed at bringing transparency to an agency that issues the valuations used to assess property taxes.<\/p>\n

This year all three positions are up for reelection<\/a>, and two feature contested races. <\/p>\n

The nonpartisan board members serve primarily administrative roles, but after conservatives in North Texas used the new elected positions to push\u00a0dramatic changes to Tarrant County\u2019s appraisal process<\/a>\u00a0two years ago, both parties have started paying closer attention to them \u2014 and lining up candidates to compete.<\/p>\n

In Bexar County, increased partisanship caused one incumbent to drop reelection plans just before the Monday filing deadline. <\/p>\n

Another incumbent drew a challenger after leading the board to approve a one-year appraisal reprieve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smaller municipalities <\/p>\n

The of city Converse<\/a> is expected to hold city council elections on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Live Oak is also having a special election<\/a> to fill the seat of a council member who died<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Not on the ballot<\/p>\n

Smaller tax increases:<\/strong> Many taxing entities are considering raising revenue in ways that don\u2019t require voter approval, for example, the Alamo Colleges District<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State law only requires an election for a tax increase if it\u2019s going to bring in more than 3.5% in additional revenue on existing properties. <\/p>\n

That means voters won\u2019t likely be asked about a tax increase for the City of San Antonio, which has stayed below that threshold<\/a> in its budget discussions. <\/p>\n

A Spurs arena:<\/strong> San Antonio City Council\u00a0rejected calls for a public\u00a0vote<\/a>\u00a0on the city\u2019s $489 million Spurs arena\u00a0contribution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city doesn\u2019t need permission from voters to spend that money, so the arena plans can move forward anyway. Now the City Council, which approved a non-binding agreement with the team last summer, will work to finalize its contract this year.<\/p>\n

Ready to Work: <\/strong>Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones also floated a possible city vote <\/a>on whether to keep the sales-tax funded Ready to Work job training program, but the idea was scrapped because most of the money couldn\u2019t be transferred to the city budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas is slated to host a buzzy U.S. Senate race, governor\u2019s race, high-profile congressional matchups, state legislative contests…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1013819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[17032,62370,5229,405660,101937,340672,247388,7202,7203,305683,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,20705],"class_list":["post-1013818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-2026-election","tag-alamo-colleges","tag-america","tag-bexar-central-appraisal-district","tag-east-central-isd","tag-november-2026-elections","tag-pre-k-4-sa","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-south-san-antonio-isd","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-750-1000"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1013819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}