Raised by a single mother on the far West Side, Gina Ortiz Jones said she’s focused on ‘doing right by her hometown.’ That starts with winning the June 7 runoff election.
As dozens of older San Antonians swayed to lively conjunto music, Gina Ortiz Jones performed her own kind of dance, weaving between rows of folding chairs, canes and walkers to introduce herself to attendees.
Jones said she’s been to the city’s annual Tejano Conjunto Festival before, but this year’s visit was different. It was an opportunity to convince the seniors that she should be their next mayor.
“In my eyes, there are two people you don’t (expletive) with: children and the elderly,” Jones said outside the near West Side dance hall.
The former Air Force undersecretary ended the May 3 election with 27% of the vote, putting her in the June 7 runoff against former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, who won 17%.
Both candidates advanced to the runoff by appealing to partisan voters — in a race for a nonpartisan office. Jones, who ran two failed campaigns as the Democratic nominee to represent Texas’s 23rd District in Congress, targeted Democrats. Pablos, a former appointee of Republican governors Greg Abbott and Rick Perry, went after GOP voters.
Every interaction at the festival offered Jones, 44, the chance to win a vote. She accepted invitations to dance and whirled around the hall in her kitten heels and ankle-length dress, her laughs muffled by the live music. Afterwards, she shook hands and posed for photos, moving smoothly through the crowd.
Jones is aware of how she’s sometimes perceived. Her opponent has labeled her robotic, and her demeanor has been described as cold or overly reserved.
She says she’s not as serious as people think, and she jokes that she has “resting bitch face:” a facial expression in an unguarded moment that unintentionally appears angry, annoyed or solemn.
Nevertheless, it will matter in 10 years how the city was governed, “not whether Gina Ortiz Jones smiled more,” she said.
“I think there are still perceptions and expectations about how women in general should be: they should be smiling more, and they should be bubbly and they should be this, that and the other,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘I’m sorry — can we talk about the risks and threats to our community and how we’re going to make sure our city is well-served?’”
Jones said her vision for the city is rooted in her upbringing on the far West Side. She says she wants to help kids who grew up like her earn a quality education and pursue successful careers.
“I know how blessed I am and how hard I’ve worked, and I know that there are kids in my community that are just as talented, just as hungry and if they had a little bit of help like I did, could do similarly great things for our city, our state and our country,” she said.
A latchkey kid raised by a single mother, she said she understands the importance of expanding early childhood education and affordable childcare for working parents. Jones, who attended public schools that served mostly children from low-income families, said she knows the difference a quality educator can have in the life of a vulnerable child.
For the first time in 20 years, local voters will elect an outsider — someone who hasn’t previously served on City Council — to take the reins at City Hall. While this would be Jones’s first time holding elected office, she said she’s a proven leader, having managed a $173 billion budget and over 600,000 personnel as the Air Force undersecretary.
Jones said the future mayor must be willing to stand up to the state and federal governments, both led by right-wing populists, to protect San Antonio’s future.
“I think courage is honestly what’s most needed now, to make sure that we get a good deal for our city in a number of ways and we’re actually tackling some of these longstanding inequities with what we know to be the solution,” she said.
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