O’Rourke Tries to Reel in Restless Republicans With Longshot Bid for Texas Governor

Beto O’Rourke’s best chance at the governor’s office is to turn the race into a referendum on the increasingly divisive incumbent, Greg Abbott.

AP/LM Otero, file
Texas Democrat and gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke at a campaign event at Fort Worth, Texas. AP/LM Otero, file

In Texas, the former congressman, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, hopes to parlay his 2018 Senate bid into a successful gubernatorial campaign by turning supporters of the incumbent governor, Greg Abbott, into de-facto Democrats.

To call the tactic a long shot is being generous. Here’s how it works: It’s become standard practice for supporters of one politician to attend the rallies of their candidate’s opponent to keep tabs on them.

At Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign stops in deep-red rural Texas, this means that supporters of Mr. Abbott at times outnumber O’Rourke supporters at his own rallies.

While it sometimes translates into an unfriendly or confrontational crowd, on occasion some of those Abbott supporters take a shine to the progressive Democrats’ message. Or so the story goes. 

The interactions have given birth to a number of “Republicans for Beto” spots on social media featuring former Republican voters espousing support for Mr. O’Rourke.

In one, a voter says, “I used to be a Republican, and I’m definitely voting for Beto and not Abbott this year.” In another, a voter says, “I told him my party left me,” adding, “The way that they’re not taking into consideration women’s rights, individual rights — it’s too much.”

While the O’Rourke ads are capturing the attention of Texas’ extremely online Democrats, Republicans in Texas are scoffing at the notion that Mr. O’Rourke has crossover appeal whatsoever in the real world.

A political strategist who has worked with both Mr. Abbott and Senator Cruz, Jason Johnson, tells the Sun that “the idea of Beto O’Rourk attracting actual Republicans is a joke.”

“It’s completely astroturfed. For once he’s listening to a pollster,” Mr. Johnson says, using the term for inauthentic grass roots support passed off as genuine. “This guy is a victim of having run for office one too many times through some very significant changes in both parties.”

Mr. Johnson argues that Mr. O’Rourke isn’t right for Texas, asserting that he is a “hardcore leftist” who is backed by “a huge online fundraising effort outside the state of Texas.”

It’s true that Mr. O’Rourke enjoys some amount of support from out-of-state Democrats hoping to turn Texas blue, but it’s also true that it’s an example of Mr. O’Rourke’s media-savvy — at least in the opinion of the director of research for Texas politics at the University of Texas at Austin, Joshua Blank.

According to Mr. Blank, Mr. O’Rourke’s ability to capture national attention might be his greatest asset in his quest to win the keys to the governor’s mansion in November.

In his opinion, Mr. O’Rourke’s best chance at the governor’s office is to turn the race into a referendum on Mr. Abbott. Between May and August, a majority of voters — 56 percent — has consistently reported that they feel the state is headed in the wrong direction, according to a recent University of Texas at Tyler poll.

Mr. Abbott — dogged by failures of the power grid, the inept police response to the shooting in Uvalde, unpopular legislation restricting abortion, and his decision to allow people to carry handguns without permits — is increasingly vulnerable, according to the political analysts.

By focusing on the above issues, Mr. O’Rourke is hoping to win over enough frustrated Texans in 2022 to make a difference.

One tactic has been to make stops in rural communities that rarely see statewide politicians in person, a move that served him well in 2018. Mr. Blank says it’s an effort to try to tighten up the margin in rural areas.

Based on 2018’s results, which was the closest statewide election in Texas since 1978, Mr. O’Rourke enjoys an advantage in most of Texas’s major cities — Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and El Paso —and along the border.

Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio were all among the fastest growing metro areas in the country over the past decade. The Dallas/Fort Worth area alone added nearly 100,000 residents between 2020 and 2021.

There are also some headwinds for Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign. According to Mr. Johnson, some of the same aspects of his personality that make him a press darling on the national stage limit his appeal to independents and moderate Republicans in Texas.

“On cultural issues, on pocketbook issues, on safety issues, it’s not just that Beto is to the left of the median Texas voter, it’s that he’s out of touch,” Mr. Johnson says.

Mr. Blank, disagrees, stating that “O’Rourke is by far the best Democrat to run statewide in Texas in recent memory” and that his positions on gun control and abortion are actually closer to the position of the average Texan.

In his opinion, the issues that will work against Mr. O’Rourke are national ones, namely the economy and the border. While the economy has shown modest signs of improvement in recent weeks, the border situation has not.

An associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Miles Coleman, says Mr. O’Rourke might be running up against a wall that has less to do with his policies and more with him as a person.

Mr. O’Rourke has been a prominent politician in Texas politics for a decade, and hasn’t held elected office in three years. Mr. Coleman thinks that he might be reaching his expiration date.

After his bid for a Senate seat, his “quixotic” 2020 presidential campaign, and his near constant presence in Texas politics, voters may just be ready for someone else, Mr. Coleman says.

He compares him to State Representative Stacey Abrams in Georgia, who has been a crucial organizer for Democrats in that state but who has so far failed to win statewide elected office. Like Mr. O’Rourke, much of Ms. Abrams campaign donations have come from outside the state of Georgia.

“I wonder if he wouldn’t have gotten so close if he wasn’t running against Cruz in 2018,” Mr. Coleman said. “It’s rarer to see governors lose than Senators lose because if you’re governor you can cultivate your own brand in your state.”


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