Eight Democratic candidates were gunning to win the nomination on Tuesday. Two will now meet in the May 26 runoff election.
SAN ANTONIO — Early votes boosted Bexar County district attorney candidates Luz Elena Chapa and Jane Davis to the front of a packed Democratic Primary field, and there they remained when county elections officials reported 100% of vote centers around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday.
According to the unofficial results, Chapa finished with 23.8% of the vote while Davis collected 18.1%. Shannon Locke ran third with 14%.
Chapa and Davis will meet in the May 26 runoff election since no candidate was able to secure 50% of the ballots. The winner will face Ashley Foster, who spent 11 years in the DA’s office and has said she hopes to address community fears about crime-reporting while rebuilding trust in the office; she ran unopposed on the Republican ballot.
Davis has worked for seven different district attorneys and currently works as chief of the juvenile division under Bexar County DA Joe Gonzales, who said last summer that he would be retiring from the position he’s held since 2019. His office has often come under scrutiny from Republican state leaders for not doing enough to keep violent offenders behind bars.
Chapa is a former attorney and judge who has cited repeat offenders as being among the office’s biggest challenges.
Eight Democratic candidates were running for Bexar County criminal district attorney, a contest that featured current employees at the office, former county prosecutors and others who are outsiders altogether.
It was unlikely that any candidate would reach the 50% threshold needed to win the Democratic nomination outright, although Davis had amassed a far greater war chest and had nearly $170,000 available to spend as of late February. None of her opponents on the Democratic ballot had more than $51,000.
Asked about the biggest issues facing the DA’s office at a February debate, most candidates cited communication with law enforcement, a need for better transparency and low staff morale. The office is also continuing to tackle a case backlog that in mid-February had dropped to fewer than 2,000 cases.
The district attorney serves for four years.
For more coverage and results of the 2026 Texas Primaries, visit kens5.com/elections.