SAN ANTONIO – In a 27-way race for mayor, candidates are desperately raising money to buy advertisements, campaign mailers and signs to get their names in voters’ minds.
KSAT looked through the latest campaign finance reports, covering Jan. 1 through Mar. 24, to see who’s doing best at raising the money they need to stand out.
Fundraising targets could be hard to hit
Political strategist Christian Archer estimates it will take $600,000 to $800,000 for a candidate just to make it to a two-way runoff.
“If you want to communicate with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people about your campaign message, it costs a lot of money,” said Archer, who is not affiliated with any of the current candidates but worked on previous campaigns for Phil Hardberger, Julian Castro, Leticia Van de Putte and Ron Nirenberg.
Most candidates don’t have that kind of money on hand, having already begun to spend big on the race. In all, the 27 candidates have spent more than $1.4 million since January 2024, more than half of it since January 2025.
But even when looking at how much money they’ve raised in the past 15 months, only a handful of candidates have broken the $300,000 mark.
Candidates will file one more campaign finance report before the May 3 election.
Candidates are dipping into their own pockets to keep up
A trio of outsider candidates have dominated fundraising: tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano, former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos and former Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones.
District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez, one of five current or former council members running, has loaned his campaign $324,000 since February, which makes up the lion’s share of his fundraising efforts so far.
Altamirano and former District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry have also put in at least $100,000 of their own money through contributions and loans.
“I think it really indicates ‘I’m willing to invest. I’m going to put my own money on the line,‘” Archer said about the campaign loans. “‘And I know that I’ve got a good message to carry. And if I do it, you know, I could become the mayor of San Antonio.‘”
Altamirano’s campaign has previously said he was committed to matching donations up to $150,000.
Perry told KSAT in a text message, “Even though I’ve been raising funds, I wanted to have some ‘skin in the game’ as well.”
Pelaez responded to a KSAT text message Wednesday, after the story’s initial publication, citing other Texas politicians and political action committees he said were “pumping money out to buy this race for Pablos, Altamirano, and Ortiz Jones.”
“It should offend all of us that mayoral candidates are trying to sell our city to out-of-town interests,” Pelaez said. “My city is not for sale. So I decided to put skin in the game to keep San Antonio from falling into the hands. I’m taking a risk, but I believe my neighbors are worth it.”
Outsider candidates are attracting money from outside San Antonio
San Antonio only allows donors to give $1,000 to a candidate per election cycle, which can make it hard to build up a war chest among a limited pool of donors.
The three outsider candidates have found money elsewhere, each drawing more than $146,000 in donations from outside the city limits.
Ortiz Jones, who previously ran for Congress twice as a Democrat, has been especially successful on that front. Over half of her $306,000 in donations have come from outside Texas, from 44 other states and Washington D.C..
Only 16% of her donations have come from within San Antonio, including an initial balance transfer from her previous Congressional campaign.
“I think the more that is raised from the city for a particular candidate, that is a stronger show of support. At the same time, you know, these political campaigns being so expensive, money is money, and you’ve got to be able to fuel your campaign,” Archer said.
