Republican John Lujan has reclaimed the Texas House District 118 seat he held in 2016, defeating Democrat Frank Ramirez in a special runoff election Tuesday with 51 percent of the vote and flipping the district from blue to red.
Lujan will fill the spot vacated by former State Rep. Leo Pacheco (D–San Antonio), who resigned in August to take a teaching job at San Antonio College.
The district includes part of San Antonio and areas south and east of the city in Bexar County.
Lujan finished first in a five-way special election in September to replace Pacheco but failed to win a majority of the votes, leading to Tuesday’s runoff.
In January 2016, Lujan also won a special election in the reliably Democrat district.
He then lost two successive general elections for the seat to Democrats: now-former State Rep. Tomas Uresti (San Antonio) in 2016 and Pacheco in 2018.
In addition to his prior stint as a state representative, Lujan has served as a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy and a San Antonio firefighter. He currently owns a local IT business.
Lujan will serve out Pacheco’s remaining term, which runs through January 2023.
