AT A GLANCE
- Early voting turnout in Bexar County hit 11.5%, with 148,077 voters—higher than both 2023 and this year’s mayoral runoff.
- More people turned out for the Spurs arena propositions than for the May mayoral election.
- Spurs leadership repeatedly dodged questions about whether the team would stay in San Antonio.
- Only a few local officials, like Gina Ortiz Jones and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, spoke out against the deal and called for transparency.
When Your Vote Buys a Felon President and Your City a Fourth Stadium: We Did Both.
In recent early voting, Bexar County saw an 11.5% turnout—148,077 people, according to the Elections Department. That’s a big jump from the 98,412 who voted in May’s mayoral runoff and even higher than the 140,000 who weighed in during 2023 election. But here’s what stands out: more people came out to vote for a basketball team than for their own mayor.
You don’t have to like the outcome to respect it. That’s the cost and the privilege of democracy everyone gets a say, even when the PAC money talks louder than truth. There’s no need to storm the Capitol building or The Rock at La Cantera.
But boy, did we show up for that team. A team that still can’t commit to staying in the city after being asked multiple times to different Spurs leadership. In local town halls and rallies, they dodged every question about whether they’d leave San Antonio—no straight answer, just vague talk about “being excited for the vote.”
Then there was the Peter Holt, Spurs watch party, with the likes of County Judge Peter Sakai and half the city’s political class acting like it was prom night. The Trump era really did something to people in public service, it emboldened them. But pocket-lined money and backdoor cigar meetings can’t hide everything forever.
There was a lot of noise this election—ads, podcasts, press conferences, rallies, town halls, gifts, you name it—but one thing that was left out was the truth. The San Antonio Express News, evening news, and those awful local podcasts covered everything except the uncomfortable part: who this really benefits.
We’re in a time where we’re in the longest government shutdown in history. Millions of Americans are fighting for SNAP benefits, healthcare has doubled, federal workers haven’t been paid in over a month, and the FAA is hanging by a thread. A UPS plane just crashed yesterday in a ball of fire in Kentucky.
Meanwhile, Trump is building a $300 million ballroom he swears is “privately funded,” and the Spurs are running the same playbook. You’d think during times like this, we wouldn’t give another group of wealthy elites another dollar of public money.
And yet, look around. The city was flooded with over $7 million worth of “Vote Yes” ads plastered on billboards, signs, the games you play on your phone, Spurs Commentator Sean Elliot boasting the props during Spurs games, social media feeds and more. They used a PAC called Win Together, which I’m sure you’ve seen on your feed, associated with the San Antonio Spurs and their campaign to gain voter support for a new downtown arena project.
Seventeen constitutional amendments passed, every single one of them. And you’d be right to wonder how many people in Bexar County even knew what they were voting for, drowned out by the nonstop Spurs propaganda.
Let’s not forget, the team won’t even share concession sales with the city. But they’ll hand out free shoes, shirts, and tickets to push for your vote. That’s the corporate equivalent of throwing pizza parties for underpaid workers, cheap distractions to cover expensive exploitation.
And just like that, enough people liked the taste to pass both props. The same way enough people stay at jobs that underpay them but offer “team lunches” to make it feel better.
The only ones who really spoke up against this were Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and D2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez. They asked the right questions, where’s the transparency, where’s the accountability? Hopefully, this project will be more than another empty promise on the Eastside. But I won’t hold my breath.
What’s worse than the result is the behavior behind it the way the Spurs used demagogic language to manipulate people into a “yes” vote. It’s the same old demagogue playbook Edward R. Murrow warned during the Red Scare.
I keep thinking about a Washington Post story from December 2024, about a woman in Pennsylvania living off food stamps and Social Security who voted for Trump. “He’s more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” she said. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected.”
That same thinking was alive in this election. People really believe the Spurs care about them. They believe the billionaires will save the neighborhoods they’ve ignored for decades. They believe the next arena will finally bring the change that never came from the last one.
Until then good night and good luck.
