San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones took aim at Matthew McConaughey’s push for independent candidates for the second time this week after the actor sat courtside at Friday night’s Spurs game in Austin.
Jones, a Democrat, posted a video of McConaughey accepting a custom jersey from the Spurs Coyote at Friday’s I-35 Series game against the Houston Rockets at the Moody Center in Austin.
“If you can’t afford courtside seats at a @spurs (or @austin_spurs) game, you can’t afford to vote Independent,” Jones wrote in the Instagram caption that encouraged voters to choose Democratic candidates.
McConaughey, who grew up in Uvalde, posted a video Sunday urging independent voters to participate in the Texas midterms and to vote for independent candidates. He described independent candidates as “a permanent check” on power.
Jones first criticized McConaughey’s video in a Tuesday Instagram post. She called his push for independent candidates a “reckless privilege” and argued Texas voters have an opportunity to hold Republicans accountable in November’s midterm elections.
“Recommending Texans vote Independent in this election when we finally have the opportunity to vote out those who have enabled everything from the Uvalde massacre (ole Matt’s hometown), Texas having the highest rate of uninsured adults and kids in the country, and Texas being ground zero for the Nation’s most horrendous immigration enforcement actions, anti-reproductive healthcare laws, and voter suppression laws is the embodiment of reckless privilege,” Jones wrote in her initial post.
The backlash comes as independent identification remains high among American voters. A January Gallup report found that a record 45% of U.S. adults identified as independents in 2025, compared with 27% each who identified as Democrats or Republicans. However, many independents still lean toward one of the two major parties.