GOP nominee for San Antonio House seat apologizes for “crude and immature” social media posts
By Renzo Downey, The Texas Tribune
August 26, 2026
Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language.
A Republican running for the Texas House in a marquee battleground district is reckoning with the recent unearthing of his decade-old social media posts, including ones that use homophobic slurs and racist tropes, which he says he now views as crude and immature.
Old tweets by Jorge Borrego, the GOP nominee for an ultra-competitive seat in San Antonio, were surfaced earlier this week by the publisher of the conservative media site Current Revolt, who shared nine social media posts from 2013 in which Borrego mentioned the use of cocaine, along with numerous others that used vulgar terms.
“@MikeeKillsz is gay as fuck …you see i actually said it,” Borrego wrote in one post, which he ended by calling the person a variation of the N-word.
In a response that has gained nearly 1 million views on X, the candidate initially dismissed concerns about the posts, noting he was a teenager at the time.
“I was 16 lol,” Borrego said, explaining in a reply that MikeeKillsz is his cousin. He ended that reply with a laughing-crying emoji.
Since then, The Texas Tribune has viewed more old tweets that were not previously reported, in which Borrego alluded to selling cocaine, attributed a fake quote to Hitler and made derogatory comments about Asians and religion. In numerous posts, Borrego used slurs for gay people.
“Still can’t tell the difference just like Asians with their eyes shut,” he wrote in March 2013.
In a statement to the Tribune on Tuesday night after being shown the new batch of past tweets, Borrego apologized for the comments and said he has matured since he made the posts.
“The posts in question were crude and immature jokes I made when I was a kid,” Borrego said. “They were not admissions nor descriptions of actions I had taken. I regret the language I used then and apologize to anyone it hurt. In no way do those past posts represent my current sentiments and feelings.”
“Dark humor to cope with trauma”
Borrego, a 30-year-old realtor and former education policy analyst, is running against Democratic political strategist Kristian Carranza in south San Antonio’s House District 118. Republicans are eager to keep the seat in GOP hands after its current occupant, state Rep. John Lujan, R-San Antonio, opted against reelection to run for Congress. Borrego has attracted endorsements from Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP nominee for attorney general, state Sen. Mayes Middleton, along with a host of other lawmakers and influential groups such as Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC.
Borrego entered politics in 2021, when he worked as legislative director for state Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville. The following year, he became a policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, later serving as the K-12 education policy director. He continued to work for the influential Austin-based conservative think tank until he launched his House campaign in the fall of 2025.
A graduate of Texas A&M University’s public policy school, where he received a master’s degree in public administration, Borrego also serves part-time as the treasurer of the Down Syndrome Association of Brazos Valley.
Before becoming involved in politics and public service, Borrego says he grew up “under difficult circumstances.” In a candidate questionnaire with the San Antonio Report, he said he was raised by a teenage mom while his dad was incarcerated. He became the first in his family to graduate college when he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“I have always been open about growing up in an environment where drug and alcohol abuse were common, and as a kid, I sometimes used dark humor to cope with trauma I did not yet know how to process,” Borrego said in his statement to the Tribune. “That context explains the jokes, but it does not excuse them. I have grown and matured, and those posts do not reflect the husband, father, or public servant I am today.”
Leading priorities on his campaign website include protecting children from fentanyl, and he told the Tribune his campaign is focused on ensuring Texans have the opportunity to build a better life, especially children growing up in poverty.
More than 50 of Borrego’s posts reviewed by the Tribune mention cocaine, meth and a host of other drugs. His posts reference “my” drug dealer and contain allusions to dealing drugs himself.
Dozens more mention crude topics, such as masturbation and other sexual matters, along with lewd comments toward his now-wife. Other posts include nighttime musings, jokes and responses to anonymous questions from the since-defunct Q&A platform Ask.fm.
“Religion is a good thing if you take it in moderation,” he wrote in November 2013.
At publication time, most of the posts still appeared on X.
A critical battleground seat
Despite his fairly recent entry to politics, Borrego is already involved in Austin political circles. Last legislative session, he advocated for the GOP’s Teacher Bill of Rights and private school vouchers, Abbott’s longtime goal that Republicans finally achieved last year.
Beyond the endorsements he’s picked up, Borrego has also already been vetted by voters.
He secured the GOP nomination in March, winning 53% of the vote in a three-way primary. With the help of Abbott and Texans for Lawsuit Reform’s political arm, he defeated trial lawyer-backed Desi Martinez and Army veteran Joe Shellhart in a race that became a proxy war in the GOP’s internal battle over civil justice. Together, TLR spent at least $417,000 on his behalf, while the Abbott campaign spent close to $21,000.
The Abbott campaign and TLR PAC did not respond to the Tribune’s requests for comment.
In November, Borrego will face Carranza, who came within 3.5 percentage points of flipping the battleground district in 2024. That margin made it Republicans’ narrowest hold in the Texas Legislature that cycle.
Democrats are once again targeting HD 118, a majority-Hispanic district tossed between Republican and Democratic hands over the past decade. With the Texas and national environment shifting to the left, particularly among Hispanic voters this cycle, HD 118 is on the forefront of districts Democrats hope to pick up.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, will hold a fundraiser in San Antonio on Thursday benefiting Borrego and Reps. Marc LaHood and Mark Dorazio, two local incumbents in relatively tight races. LaHood, seeking a second term, is on Democrats’ target list again after winning his seat by just 5 points in 2024. Dorazio was reelected by 16 points.
“When candidates forget to audit”
In an age where an internet-raised generation is beginning to run for office, vetting and polishing social media posts has become a standard practice for serious candidates.
“Always a good laugh when candidates forget to audit their social media before running for office,” Current Revolt publisher Tony Ortiz wrote in sharing the first round of Borrego’s posts.
Candidates on both sides of the aisle have faced scrutiny over their social media posts past and present.
Brandon Herrera, a Second Amendment activist and influencer running in the nearby 23rd Congressional District, has a social media footprint containing jokes about the Holocaust, veteran suicide and motherhood. As a political candidate, he has embraced the edgelord persona cultivated in his YouTube videos, while insisting that some of his past comments have been taken out of context.
In the Democratic primary for the 35th Congressional District, which overlaps with House District 118, sex therapist and housing advocate Maureen Galindo was condemned nationally by members of her party for a series of antisemitic comments she made on Instagram while campaigning for the office.
In a statement to the Tribune, Carranza, 36, said she was disgusted by Borrego’s words and his initial “lol” response, and that he “should be in rehab, not public office.”
“It’s clear that this man is unfit and unable to serve in a position of trust,” the Democrat said.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University and The University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.