{"id":16142,"date":"2025-10-22T19:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/16142\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T19:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:08:11","slug":"rangel-wont-run-for-bexar-county-district-attorney-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/16142\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangel won&#8217;t run for Bexar County District Attorney after all"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Judge Ron Rangel won\u2019t run for Bexar County District Attorney after all, leaving a wide-open race to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/sanantonioreport.org\/bexar-county-district-attorney-joe-gonzales-wont-seek-reelection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">retiring District Attorney Joe Gonzales<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Rangel, a Democrat in the 379th Criminal District Court, was among the first to throw his name in the hat after Gonzales shocked political watchers by announcing plans not to run again 18-months out from the 2026 election.<\/p>\n<p>Judges are subject to a resign-to-run rule, so Rangel <a href=\"https:\/\/sanantonioreport.org\/bexar-county-district-attorney-race-2026-ron-rangel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">launched an exploratory PAC<\/a> to support a potential campaign and even held a fundraiser for it just last week. <\/p>\n<p>Campaign consultant Laura Barberena said Wednesday, \u201cwe will be returning all of the money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rangel instead plans to complete his term on the bench, which ends in 2028. Doing so would qualify him for the maximum retirement benefits, he told the Report back in June.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cLast year, I asked the voters to entrust me with presiding over the 379th Criminal District Court for another four years,\u201d he said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cI promised that I was committed to building on the tremendous progress we have made at the courthouse, and I remain committed to that promise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Past District Attorney races have been expensive, hotly contested affairs. But whoever takes over the role next will inherit many challenges. <\/p>\n<p>Gonzales was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sanantonioreport.org\/district-attorney-bexar-county-primary-election-results-2018\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">first elected in 2018<\/a> after defeating incumbent Democrat Nico LaHood in a primary and benefitting from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/local\/politics\/article\/Inside-the-ground-game-and-Soros-effect-that-took-12770212.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">roughly $1 million<\/a>\u00a0from liberal billionaire George Soros\u2019 Texas Justice &amp; Public Safety political action committee. Four years later, he fended off a challenge from Republican Marc LaHood in another expensive race.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/sanantonioreport.org\/staff-shortages-pay-gaps-overwhelm-bexar-countys-district-attorneys-office\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">DA\u2019s office currently has 49 staff vacancies<\/a>, including more than 30 prosecutors, and a backlog of thousands of cases.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sos.state.tx.us\/elections\/voter\/important-election-dates.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Filing for the March 3 primary<\/a>\u00a0opens Nov. 8 and runs through Dec. 8.<\/p>\n<p>Criminal defense attorney\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sanantonioreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Veronica-Legeretta-Media-Advisory2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Veronica Legarreta filed<\/a>\u00a0a treasurer\u2019s report to run in the Democratic primary last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge Ron Rangel won\u2019t run for Bexar County District Attorney after all, leaving a wide-open race to replace&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8519,12938,12939,12940,12941,10327,12942,12943,12944,82,84,83,92,3028,12945,3219],"class_list":{"0":"post-16142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-2026-election","9":"tag-bexar-county-da","10":"tag-bexar-county-district-attorney","11":"tag-bexar-county-district-attorneys-office","12":"tag-das-office","13":"tag-george-soros","14":"tag-joe-gonzales","15":"tag-nico-lahood","16":"tag-ron-rangel","17":"tag-san-antonio","18":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","19":"tag-san-antonio-news","20":"tag-top-story","21":"tag-typedaily","22":"tag-veronica-legarreta","23":"tag-wc-less-than-500"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}