Bexar County Democratic Party Chairman Manuel Medina has never held an elected government office but has experience as a political consultant. He has pledged to regulate public utility rate and salary increases, improve public transportation, and restore public trust at City Hall along with other proposals.

He is campaigning with his own money and not special interests’ funds. Chairman Medina argues for greater transparency in local government decisions. He is also critical of San Antonio’s Vista Ridge project, meant to transfer 20 percent more water from Burleson County to San Antonio in a 142 mile-long pipeline by 2020.

San Antonio elected District 8 Councilman Nirenberg to his seat in 2013 and re-elected him in 2015. During his time in office, he has banned retroactive immunity and began projects to solve San Antonio transportation related issues concerning Wurzbach, UTSA Blvd, Boerne Stage Road and Huebner Road.

He has met with UTSA officials to support expanding UTSA’s physical presence in San Antonio by executing the Campus Master Plan meant to develop research labs and programs to attain tier one status.

Nirenberg does not publically affiliate with a political party and his campaign’s theme is “For the City You Deserve.”

Mayor Ivy Taylor is campaigning for re-election for a second full-term. Her public political affiliation is Independent, but she is registered as a Democrat. In 1999, she started working for San Antonio in the Housing and Community Development Department. One of her self-professed victories from her first term as mayor is ending a deadlock between the police union and the city over their contract.

Mayor Taylor supported UTSA’s football team by promoting SAPD to carry UTSA Roadrunners trading cards to give to San Antonio youth.

She was criticized in 2016 for holding public prayer over the Orlando night club shooting victims’ families.