Texas House District 118: Redistricting, Lujan’s Exit, and the 2026 Race

Texas House District 118 is a Bexar County state legislative seat covering roughly 470 square miles of south, east, and northeast San Antonio, and it has become one of the few genuinely competitive districts in the Texas Legislature. The seat is open in 2026 after Republican John Lujan left to run for Congress, and Democrat Kristian Carranza is facing Republican Jorge Borrego in a race both parties view as central to control of the Texas House.

Where the District Is and Who Lives There

District 118 takes in neighborhoods on San Antonio’s south side and stretches east and northeast across Bexar County. Its population is about 214,500, with a median age of 35.5 and a median household income near $73,950.¹

Roughly 62 percent of residents are Hispanic, 27 percent non-Hispanic white, 8 percent Black, and 3 percent Asian. About 13 percent live in poverty, and about 24 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. The largest employment sectors are education, health care, and social assistance, followed by retail and professional services.²

How the District Became Competitive

The seat was long treated as safely Democratic. Joe Biden carried it by 14 points in 2020.³ Since then it has flipped repeatedly.

John Lujan first won the seat in a 2016 special election, lost it in 2018, then won it back in a November 2021 special election that Republicans nationally cited as a sign of gains among Hispanic voters.⁴³ He held the seat in 2022 and again in 2024, defeating Democrat Kristian Carranza 51.8 percent to 48.2 percent.⁵

The margins tell the story. Under current lines, Donald Trump carried the district by fewer than 6 points in 2024, while Beto O’Rourke would have carried the same territory by 5 points during his 2018 U.S. Senate run.⁶

The 2021 Redistricting Fight

The current boundaries came out of the 2021 redistricting cycle. The Bexar County House delegation, made up of two Republicans and seven Democrats, initially agreed on a bipartisan map. That deal broke on the House floor when Representative Jacey Jetton of Fort Bend County offered an amendment aimed at turning District 118 from a swing seat into a solidly Republican one.⁷

Democrats pushed back, and the final map left the district relatively balanced. Some voters were shifted from District 118 into neighboring District 124, which critics said “packed” Democratic voters into one seat. Representative Ina Minjarez and voting rights advocates argued the maps diluted the voting power of nonwhite residents.⁷

At least three lawsuits challenged the new Texas maps on racial gerrymandering grounds, including one brought by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Senate redistricting committee chair Joan Huffman said the maps were drawn without using racial data. The cycle was the first since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision ended the requirement that Texas obtain federal preclearance before implementing new maps under the Voting Rights Act.⁷

John Lujan’s Tenure and Departure

Lujan, a Republican, represented the district from his 2021 special election win through 2025. Born and raised on San Antonio’s south side, he spent five years as a Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy and more than 25 years as a San Antonio firefighter before entering politics, and co-founded Sistema Technologies, an IT firm employing more than 500 people in Bexar County.⁸

School vouchers dominated his last campaign. Governor Greg Abbott’s Education Savings Account proposal would give students $10,500 annually in public funds for private school tuition and related expenses.⁹ Lujan voted for legislation linking voucher funding to public school funding in November 2023, then by October 2024 told debate audiences the two should be separated and that the legislature needed to fund public schools “immediately” rather than use school funding as leverage.¹⁰

Money followed the race. Across seven District 118 campaigns Lujan raised roughly $5.5 million cumulatively, with the 2024 cycle alone accounting for about $2.6 million.¹¹ A single late-2024 reporting period brought in about $1.5 million, including $500,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, $250,000 from the Associated Republicans of Texas, $100,000 from House Speaker Dade Phelan, $100,000 in in-kind support from Governor Abbott, and $25,000 from Dallas real estate investor Harlan Crow.¹²

In August 2025, Lujan filed to run for the newly redrawn 35th U.S. Congressional District, which covers much of the same territory as his state House seat. He advanced to the Republican primary runoff but lost to Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran endorsed by Donald Trump, 58 percent to 42 percent.¹³ His departure left District 118 open for the first time in years.

The 2026 Candidates

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee named District 118 one of 12 Republican-held seats it is targeting to flip in 2026, and Representative Trey Martinez Fischer called the district “ground zero.”⁶¹⁴

Jorge Borrego, Republican

Jorge Borrego, 30, won the Republican primary in March 2026 with about 53 percent of the vote in a three-way race.¹⁵ He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from UTSA and a master’s in public policy from Texas A&M, and previously served as K-12 education policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and as a legislative director in the Texas House before becoming a realtor.¹⁶

His platform centers on expanding school choice, including the Education Savings Account program he helped advance in his previous policy role, along with property tax reduction through appraisal and bond reform, support for law enforcement, and government transparency.¹⁶ He has been endorsed by Governor Abbott, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and the American Federation for Children Victory Fund.¹⁷

Kristian Carranza, Democrat

Carranza, who lost to Lujan by about three and a half points in 2024, is running again. She was raised on San Antonio’s south side and previously worked as Nevada state director for Julián Castro’s 2020 presidential campaign and on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. During the 2024 race the Bexar County GOP accused her of changing her name from Thompson to Carranza to appeal to Hispanic voters; she said the name honors her mother, who raised her as a single parent, and that she had used it professionally for about a decade before legally changing it in 2023.¹⁸

Her 2026 platform opposes public funds for private school vouchers, calls for increasing the state’s share of public education funding to lower local property taxes, and focuses on affordable housing, childcare costs, and workforce development.¹⁹ Her 2024 campaign raised $1.2 million, which she said was more than any first-time state House candidate had raised in Texas history, with significant support from a national PAC aligned with gun safety activist David Hogg.⁵ She has been endorsed by the DLCC and by several San Antonio elected officials.²⁰

What’s at Stake Statewide

The math explains the attention. Republicans hold 88 seats in the 150-member Texas House to the Democrats’ 62, with 76 needed for a majority. If Democrats flipped all 12 of their targeted seats and held their own, they would come within one seat of splitting the chamber evenly, ending more than two decades of uninterrupted Republican control.⁶

School vouchers are the policy issue most directly tied to the outcome. Republicans see the seat as essential to keeping a legislative path open for expanding the Education Savings Account program, while Democrats have framed the race as a referendum on whether public money should flow to private schools.⁶

1
Census Reporter. State House District 118, TX
2
Texas Legislative Council. House District 118 Profile
3
Republican State Leadership Committee. Republicans Win in Texas House District 118
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Texas Public Radio. Republican John Lujan Is Re-Elected in Close Texas House District 118 Race
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San Antonio Report. Texas House District 118 John Lujan Kristian Carranza
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Texas Tribune. Texas House National Democrats Target List GOP Districts
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San Antonio Report. Texas Senate House Redistricting
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Texas House of Representatives. John Lujan Biography
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San Antonio Express-News. John Lujan Kristian Carranza Vouchers
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San Antonio Report. John Lujan House District 118 Abortion School Vouchers
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Follow the Money. John Lujan Candidate Details
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San Antonio Report. Donors Behind Texas House District 118 Campaign Finance Reports
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KSAT. Texas Congressional District 35 Runoff Election Results
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San Antonio Report. Texas House District 118 Primary Election Results
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KSAT. Election Results Texas House District 118 March 2026 Primary
16
San Antonio Report. Jorge Borrego Profile
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The Texan. Jorge Borrego Wins Republican Nomination
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Texas Tribune. Kristian Carranza Bexar John Lujan Legislature
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San Antonio Report. Kristian Carranza Profile
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Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Kristian Carranza