Gina Ortiz Jones declares victory and becomes San Antonio’s next mayor
Gina Oritz Jones, a Democrat, just declared victory with 54% of the vote in San Antonio’s mayoral race. Jones is an Air Force veteran and most recently served in the Biden administration as Air Force Under Secretary.
Jones is Filipino American who was raised by her single, immigrant mother who was a retired educator. Jones earned an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) scholarship and enrolled at Boston University where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies and master’s degree in economics.
During the race, her opponent, Rolando Pablos, accused Jones of appropriating the name ‘Oritz’ to appeal to Latino voters. According to the Texas Tribute, Pablos also ran ads accusing Jones of pretending to be Hispanic. “Gina, drop it. You're not Latina,” one ad said.
“Gina is a proud Filipino-American, and it's tradition for Filipino children to take their mother's maiden name as their middle name, so that's always been her middle name,” Jones’s campaign said in a statement.
