Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke announces bid for Governor
After months of speculation, former congressman Beto O’Rourke on Monday announced his bid as a Democratic candidate for Texas governor.
O’Rourke, who is from El Paso and ran for president in 2020, has been considered a top contender for the gubernatorial race. Candidate filing opened on Saturday and runs until Dec. 13.
He became a national name in 2018 when he challenged Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate. He lost the bid in an close race separated by about 200,000 votes but has been credited for helping down ballot Democrats get elected across the state. In historically red Tarrant County, O’Rourke won with some 4,300 votes.
“The reason I am running is to see if together we can help bring this state into focus on the big things that are most important for our fellow Texans,” O’Rourke told the Star-Telegram in an interview.
In a two-minute video announcing his run, O’Rourke recounts the February winter storm when Texans across the state went without electricity. Texans were “abandoned by those elected to serve and look out for them,” O’Rourke says.
“It’s a symptom of a much larger problem that we have in Texas right now,” O’Rourke said. “Those in a position of public trust have stopped listening to, serving and paying attention to and trusting the people of Texas and so they’re not really focused on the things we want them to do, like making sure we have a functioning electricity grid or that we’re creating the best jobs in America right here in Texas, or that we have world class schools or that we make progress on the things that most of us actually agree on, like expanding Medicaid or legalizing marijuana.”
He continues that, “instead they’re focusing on the kind of extremist policies around abortion or permitless carry or even in our schools that really only divide us and keep us apart and stop us from working together on the truly big things that we want to achieve for one another.”
O’Rourke most recently ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary, where he failed to break out in a crowded field of candidates. He got backlash during his bid when he pledged, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” The remarks during a debate came after a deadly mass shooting in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso.
In the time since, he has been involved in helping to register voters through his organization Powered By People.
Several candidates have already announced bids on the Republican side, including incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, former state Sen. Don Huffines and former Texas GOP Chair Allen West.
A recent University of Texas at Austin/The Texas Tribune poll had Abbott up by 9 percentage points over O’Rourke.
Abbott’s campaign, responding to O’Rourke’s bid in a Monday statement, likened the Democratic candidate to President Joe Biden, whose approval ratings have dropped in Texas, according to University of Texas at Austin/The Texas Tribune polling. The campaign had released advertisements targeting O’Rourke before his announcement.
“Governor Abbott proudly supports the men and women of law enforcement, has deployed Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety personnel and resources to secure the border, and has created a business climate that has made Texas the economic engine of America,” spokesperson Mark Miner said in a statement. “The last thing Texans need is President Biden’s radical liberal agenda coming to Texas under the guise of Beto O’Rourke. The contrast for the direction of Texas couldn’t be clearer.”
Asked about working to win in historically Republican areas, O’Rourke stressed that it’s important to “go everywhere.”
“We cannot write anybody off,” he said. “We cannot take anybody for granted, and your party affiliation means nothing to me. I don’t see you as a Republican or a Democrat or an independent. I see you as a Texan.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 8:04 AM.
