The race for Texas House District 118 was too early to call on Tuesday night as Republican State Representative John Lujan held a small lead over Democratic challenger Frank Ramirez.
The race was a rematch of the 2021 special election between the two after former Democratic State Representative Leo Pacheco resigned to assume a new job.
Lujan, a business owner, ran his campaign on the goals of securing the border, lowering property taxes, pro-business policies, and the controversial and anti-trans political stance of keeping so-called “transgender ideology” out of classrooms.
Ramirez, a former San Antonio City Council and Texas legislative staffer, ran on increasing teacher pay, raising the age to buy military-style rifles to 21, lowering property taxes, and protecting abortion rights.
At a campaign watch party event shared with District Attorney Joe Gonzales and District Judge candidate Marisa Flores, who both won their races, Ramirez said he still felt good about his position, despite being behind.
“The cumulative efforts of all of our allies have really shown that we are competitive regardless of the financial gap, which is five-to-one,” he said. “And the fact is that we’re still within striking distance – and if this trend persists – we’ll win at the end of election night.”
Lujan’s campaign has pulled in over $1.2 million for the race, compared to Ramirez’s roughly $250,000. Republicans have invested heavily in Lujan’s re-election effort in a bid to win over South Texas Latino voters.
Lujan did not immediately respond to TPR’s request for comment.
Since the 2021 special election Lujan won by fewer than 300 votes, D118 has been redrawn so that it only favored Biden by 3 points, a much weaker position for Democrats than had existed previously.
During the campaign, Lujan has faced criticisms over a potential conflict of interest — he sits on a legislative committee that oversees a contract his personal IT business has with the state. Lujan has not had any decision-making powers over the contract because he has not sat during a legislative session.
Ramirez questioned why Lujan hadn’t been open about the potential conflict sooner during a candidate forum held by TPR’s “The Source,” but Lujan said he did nothing wrong. He also committed to selling off his shares in the company if he were to be re-elected.