After nearly eight years—two terms—in power as the top prosecutor in Texas’ fourth largest county, Democratic District Attorney Joe Gonzales is not running for reelection in Bexar County. And while there is no clear successor, there is no shortage of contenders on the crowded Democratic primary stage.
Eight candidates are vying to be the Democratic nominee for DA in this solid-blue county. As a debate between those candidates on February 3 emphasized, there are plenty of differences in personality and temperament between the candidates, but not much daylight in their proposals for how to address some of the office’s most pressing issues. (The Democratic nominee will go up against the sole GOP candidate, Ashley Foster, in the November general election.)
Without a clear frontrunner or heir apparent, Gonzales told the Texas Observer the race is wide open—“Nobody on the ballot has any kind of edge or lead,” he said. That leaves a big impending hole at the top of a prosecutor’s office that handles about 60,000 criminal cases a year.
