Facing a pivotal decision on whether to help the Spurs return to downtown San Antonio, voters turned out this year in numbers Bexar County hasn’t seen since the last time an NBA arena was on their ballots in 1999.
Roughly a month after UTSA’s poll showed the arena funding underwater, voters approved Prop B with more than 52% of the vote, while Prop A sailed through with an even higher 56% support.
“The polling suggested that this thing was going to face an uphill battle … that there was a lot of opposition to it, and a lot of questions about whether or not this is money well-spent,” said UTSA political science professor Jon Taylor.
A closer look at how ballot initiatives to fund the new arena and rehabilitate the existing one performed across various neighborhoods offers insight into the unusual politics of a sports venue deal that local leaders were eager to put on the ballot, and which voters ended up narrowly supporting.
“The community has spoken,” Spurs chairman Peter J. Holt said on election night. “We love this city, we love this county, and the county and the city love us back.”
Here are our top takeaways from an exciting election in Bexar County.
1. High voter interest
Off-year November elections are when Texans approve state constitutional amendments, typically drawing out only the most committed voters.
But in early voting alone, Props A and B fueled more participation than in any of the county’s last three November odd-year elections, according to Elections Administer Michele Carew.
Election Day turnout was even more dramatic, notching a higher-than-usual share of the total vote, political watchers say, and delaying the announcement of early results while hundreds of people were still waiting in line at 7 p.m. to cast their ballots.
Overall, the roughly 248,000 votes cast for the Nov. 4 election put turnout at about 19.3% of the county’s 1.23 million registered voters — compared to 23.6% turnout when the county approved funding for what’s now known as the Frost Bank Center 26 years ago.
Compared to Bexar County’s 2023 November election, turnout this Nov. 4 was up about 100,000 votes. Voting outpaced the city’s June mayoral runoff by about the same margin, though the city’s eligible voting universe is much smaller than the whole county.
2. Northside voters carried Prop B
Voters in some of the county’s more affluent Northside neighborhoods played a key role in bringing Prop B, which provides $311 million for the new arena, over the line.
Precincts that include the municipalities of Olmos Park, Terrell Hills and Alamo Heights had some of the highest percentages of support, as well as others north of San Antonio city limits.
“There was a coalition between Southside and Northside voters, and the West Side was a mixed bag,” said San Antonio political consultant Bert Santibañez, who worked on behalf of the Spurs’ Win Together PAC. “But the North Side really put this over the top.”
Voters wait in line outside of the Brook Hollow Library polling location during Election Day, Nov. 4, 2025. Credit: Amber Esparza / San Antonio Report
The North Side is some of the county’s reddest territory, and public polling suggested Republicans were more skeptical of the $1.3 billion Spurs arena deal than their Democratic counterparts.
But Santibañez said the election results were further evidence the county’s North Side isn’t a monolith.
“There’s this long-running misconception that the North Side is entirely Republican, and clearly it’s not,” Santibañez said. “There are many affluent Democrats on the North Side.”
To view results from individual precinct, hover over it on the map. Raw votes are in the left column, while percentage is on the right. The colors indicate margin of victory, with the darkest brown precincts showing where Prop B fared the worst, and the darkest teal showing where it performed best.
3. Eastside skepticism
Some of the lowest support for Prop B came from the East Side, where the Spurs currently play their games at the Frost Bank Center.
Opened in 2002, the Frost Bank Center was expected to bring surrounding development that never materialized, fueling the team’s decision to pursue a new venue downtown.
Of the four Bexar County Commissioners Court precincts, Eastside Precinct 4 was the only one in which the majority of voters were against Prop B to fund the new downtown arena.
“It’s no surprise that those who’ve been misled about how wonderful life is going to be if they just approve this way too many times already, we’re not buying it again,” said COPS/Metro Alliance leader Sonia Rodriguez, whose community activist group campaigned hard against Prop B through a political action committee.
Rodriguez suggested the election results reflect a difference in the way residents will be affected by the downtown construction, and whether they can afford to attend the games.
“I can tell you that in a lot of our communities on the South Side, West Side and the East Side, they can’t afford Spurs tickets,” Rodriguez said. “Alamo Heights and above, they’re going to be living in another world.”
Bexar Proposition B - County Commissioner Precinct (Table)
At the same time, however, a majority of Precinct 4 residents supported Prop A, which provides funding to turn the Spurs’ existing home into a year-round stock show and rodeo district.
Countywide, the rodeo initiative was more popular with voters than the new Spurs arena, and it didn’t face the same organized opposition as Prop B.
But to the East Side, the rodeo expansion is now the latest plan that elected officials hope will deliver new amenities like bars and restaurants — based on the premise that people competing in western-themed events will be overnight visitors, unlike basketball fans.
“Like most people around here, I am tired of hearing about master grandiose plans, I’m tired of somebody waving a banner out there, ‘I’m doing this, I’m doing that,’ and we end up with nothing,” San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo CEO Cody Davenport said on a CityFest panel last month. “Let the rodeo come in and do what we’ve been doing every year in February. Let us expand that. … Let’s build that.”
Rodeo CEO Cody Davenport informs attendees of the election result that Prop A stands at 57% in early votes with hopes for it to pass. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report
4. 2025 Spurs arena vs. past venue votes
When Bexar County put the funding for the Spurs’ existing Eastside arena out to voters in 1999, it was approved with 61% support, much higher than Prop B’s 52% approval.
Like for the new arena, the county was asking voters at that time to use its hotel and rental car tax, which wound up providing $175 million for the Frost Bank Center — formerly known as the SBC Center and AT&T Center.
Such fees on visitors are considered more palatable than asking local voters to raise their own taxes, and reflect an evolving toolset the legislature has created for cities and counties to fund major projects.
Before the creation of the venue tax, for example, the Alamodome hinged on Bexar County voters agreeing to a half-cent sales tax increase in 1989, which they approved with 53% of the vote.
The new arena’s $1.3 billion price tag involves a $489 million contribution from the city, from sources that don’t require a public vote, such as a state-designated Project Finance Zone.
But the City Council is now expected to hammer out the final details of its agreement with the team, and critics of the new arena hope they’ll keep the close vote in mind.
“It moves now to the city where there’s still so many unanswered questions,” said Rodriguez. “The vote shows that people were not happy with the process.”
5. The Spurs spent big
As of Oct. 25, the Spurs-backed Win Together PAC had reported spending roughly $7 million on its campaign, including mails ads, text messages, door-to-door canvassing, TV ads and even paid influencers urging voters to support the new arena.
The Texas Realtors’ PAC also ran at least $240,000 of ads promoting Props A and B, according to a campaign finance report covering Sept. 26 through Oct. 26.
Final spending totals won’t be known until semi-annual campaign finance reports are due Jan. 15, and the Spurs declined to comment on their final spend.
“I don’t think they stopped spending money 10 days out, if anything, the huge turnout on Election Day showed that they were spending a s— ton of money in the last four to eight days,” said San Antonio political strategist Kelton Morgan, who was not involved in the Prop B campaigns.
“When all the numbers come in, I wouldn’t be surprised it if [the Spurs’ campaign spending] approached $10 million,” Morgan said.
With roughly 128,600 votes cast in support of Prop B, the math works out to about $55 spent per vote if the Spurs’ campaign had spent $7 million.
If spending hit $10 million, it would closer to $77 per vote.
“Given how often we were inundated with TV ads, radio ads, internet ads, text messaging that was going on, even messaging at Spurs games themselves — I think that was enough [to close an early gap in voter enthusiasm],” Taylor said.