Four months ago, Matt Mackowiak orchestrated a miracle.

Mackowiak, the chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, directed the campaign of Pete Flores, a Republican retired game warden, to a special-election runoff win in reliably Democratic Texas Senate District 19.

In doing so, Flores captured a seat that had been held for more than a decade by disgraced San Antonio Democratic lawmaker Carlos Uresti, who resigned last year after being convicted on 11 felony counts, including money laundering and fraud.

At the moment, Mackowiak is attempting a repeat performance, as the campaign manager for Republican longshot Fred Rangel in the special election to fill the Texas House seat vacated when Justin Rodriguez resigned to join the Bexar County Commissioners Court.

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Rangel’s biggest ally, aside from Mackowiak, might be the odd logistics of special elections, which provide only a few weeks to campaign and generate little interest from voters. Under those circumstances, the standard voting patterns of a district can start to feel irrelevant.

“With a special election, the most important word in the phrase is ‘special,’ not ‘election,’” Mackowiak said. “They’re very unique. I mean, this is a one-month race.”

Viewed from one angle, Rangel’s campaign would seem to offer little promise. The 64-year-old architectural consultant has been a failed perennial in City Council District 7, running four times over the past 18 years and never getting close to victory.

In 2001, Rangel ran into a buzz saw named Julián Castro, then making his first bid for political office. Rangel finished a distant second, with 12.9 percent of the vote, to 61.8 percent for Castro.

In subsequent races, Rangel never registered more than 14.5 percent and never finished higher than third.

On the plus side for Rangel, Democratic districts in Bexar County have shown a tendency to go loopy during special elections.

Three times in the past four years, we’ve seen local Democratic legislative districts slip out of the party’s hands — twice to Republicans (Flores and John Lujan) and once to an independent (Laura Thompson).

Rangel will be competing against former state Rep. Art Reyna, former San Antonio City Councilman Ray Lopez and progressive advocates Coda Rayo-Garza and Steve Huerta. Rangel will be the lone Republican.

One of the key elements that has boosted upset-minded Republicans in recent special elections has been the presence of intense division among Democrats.

In 2015, Tomás Uresti and Gabe Farias fought an intraparty grudge match that enabled Lujan, a retired firefighter, to sneak into the Texas House runoff and pull off a win. Last year, state Rep. Roland Gutierrez and former Congressman Pete Gallego verbally wrestled with each other while Flores found a path to victory.

There’s no indication that we’ll see the circular-firing-squad effect with the Democrats in this race, but they will be competing for the same votes. And that works to Rangel’s favor.

“They’re all going to be fishing out of the same pond,” Mackowiak said. “And their pond is bigger. There are more Democrats in this district than Republicans. But we’re fishing in a pond by ourselves.”

Making contact with voters will be easier for Rangel than it was for Flores, who had to cover a 17-county Senate district that stretches from San Antonio to West Texas. By contrast, House District 125 is entirely contained within West Bexar County.

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Flores had set the table for his 2018 upset, however, by challenging Carlos Uresti in 2016 and drawing more than 97,000 votes (40.4 percent).

Flores also benefited from voter disgust with Uresti, which poisoned the atmosphere for Uresti’s fellow Democrats.

In addition, the top two Democrats in the Senate special election — Gutierrez and Gallego — faced controversies of their own. Gutierrez had to answer for a series of tax liens and breach-of-contract suits, while Gallego never adequately addressed questions about whether he lived in the district.

While Flores could at least count on some solid-red rural counties in his race, Rangel will be swimming in a deep blue sea. District 125 is so thoroughly Democratic that no Republican even bothered to challenge Rodriguez over the past three election cycles.

But with a turnout likely to be less than 5,000 voters, an energized local GOP can have a disproportionate effect. Rangel has been a loyal party foot soldier, serving as a precinct chair and building strong personal connections with party activists. This could be the time for him to cash in those IOUs.

“It’s a sprint. Turnout will be low,” Mackowiak said. “We’ll see who can put a good campaign together quickly. In some ways, we’re not really competing with anyone. We’re competing with ourselves.

“I’m not going to make any bold predictions here. I’ll say this: I think Fred’s going to be competitive. I think he’s got a great chance to be competitive.”

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470