Gilbert Garcia: Dark-money group targets Trish DeBerry with $259,000 in TV ad buys

A shadowy, mysterious force inserted itself into the race for Bexar County judge this past week. A dark-money group identifying itself as Friends of Bexar LLC has bought more than $259,000 worth of television advertising time in the San Antonio area for the purpose of attacking Republican nominee Trish DeBerry. The ads began running this past week on KSAT and KENS 5 and will continue to appear through the first week of October. KSAT is contracted to run the anti-DeBerry ad 208 times, while KENS will run it 98 times. It’s unusual to see TV advertising buys on that scale occur in a local race with no clear sense of who is bankrolling the ads or why they’re doing so. The Friends of Bexar ad is a 30-second diatribe against DeBerry, the veteran public-relations consultant and former county commissioner. It attempts to paint her as ruthlessly ambitious, unethical and extremist. “Trish DeBerry would crawl across steaming hot coals to be county judge, to keep serving herself,” the faceless narrator declares, over an image of orange flames.

“Insider DeBerry continued to seek multiple, major taxpayer-funded contracts for her own company, while serving on the Commissioners Court. She and (Gov.) Greg Abbott will take reproductive freedom from Bexar County women. Trish DeBerry means more contracts for Trish, more heartache for women.” The Abbott reference is an effort to link DeBerry to this state’s GOP leadership, which passed a 2021 trigger law banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest. DeBerry has not made abortion an issue in her race with Sakai, focusing instead on reducing property taxes, addressing public safety, improving conditions at the Bexar County jail and tackling the domestic-violence backlog in the county’s court system. DeBerry faced questions during her 2020 campaign for county commissioner over her firm’s contracts with San Antonio Water System and other public entities, and the potential for conflicts of interest. In response, she stepped down as CEO and said she would limit her involvement in the business to private-sector clients. DeBerry now says that as of July 4, she has completely divested herself from the firm, formerly known as the DeBerry Group, but now called talkStrategy.