Axios is reporting a scoop that sources in Texas say that Beto O’Rourke is launching a campaign to run for governor against Greg Abbott. If there is one thing that is sure, it’s that Texans deserve a better governor than Abbott. Whether they’re ready to embrace a Democrat is a different story altogether.
As you are aware, the favorite wet dream of the Democratic party is Texas flipping blue. When newspapers were endorsing Hillary Clinton, the fantasy level ratcheted up. “Could it be now?” And then when Biden ran against Trump it was thought, “It’s got to be now.” And once again it was not. Trump won by a comfortable 52% margin.
And now the baton passes to O’Rourke. If the entire state can’t flip blue, how about the governor’s mansion? It is not unknown to have a governor of a state be from a different party as other elected officials. The textbook example right now is Massachusetts, a deep blue state with Elizabeth Warren as its most high profile elected official and Republican Charlie Baker as its governor. So it could happen in Texas. It’s not impossible.
The big picture: In addition to deep cultural differences on how to respond to COVID-19, many of the contentious issues dividing the country seem to be bigger in Texas, with raging debates on abortion rights and border security flaring across the state.
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Abbott championed a law, which the Supreme Court declined to strike down, to criminalize abortions six weeks after conception, enraging progressive activists and potentially suburban women.
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He has also stoked cultural divides on COVID-19 and used executive action to try and prevent local jurisdictions from imposing mandates for masks or vaccines.
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On the border, Abbott has called for six points of entry in Texas to be closed and has blamed the Biden administration for the growing humanitarian crisis in Del Rio, where thousands of migrants are seeking shelter underneath a bridge.
What they are saying: “We hope that he’s going to run,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the state chair of the Democratic Party, told Axios. “We think he’ll be our strongest candidate. We think he can beat Abbott, because he’s vulnerable.”
- “His prohibition against mask and vaccination mandates have not gone over well with Texans,” Hinojosa said. “And with the abortion law, Republicans have raised the anger level of Texas women higher than anyone has ever seen before.”
By the numbers: While Democrats insisted that 2020 could be the year that Texas might turn blue and vote for its first Democrat for president since 1976, President Trump won that state with 52%, the same as his 2016 margin.
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Trump captured 1.2 million more votes in 2020, for a total of 5.8 million.
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In 2018, O’Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz, 51% to 48%, by a margin of some 215,000 votes.
Abbott is not just controversial, he’s incompetent overall. He can always find time to do an interview with Sean Hannity, even when people are freezing to death and/or dying from heat prostration in his state. Rolling black outs have done in governors in the past (ask Gray Davis, that’s how he got recalled in 2003 and Arnold Schwarzenegger took over) and I don’t even know if there is a governor who let a nuclear power plant come within two minutes of going offline to compare Abbott to. That might be a case of first impression.
This much is certain: it will be a wild campaign. A free for all. Abbott will spend all his time on right-wing media and O’Rourke will call out his lies.
We will see. I read in the local paper about a poll that shows 51% disapprove of Abbott’s performance and 41% approve. I think the more he acts like tRump, the more he alienates the majority. I also think the time that Beto said “damn right we’ll take your guns” will be in attack ads and I’m sure that will strike a cord in gun loving Texas.
“And then when Biden ran against Trump it was thought, “It’s got to be now.” And once again it was not. Trump won by a comfortable 52% margin.”
Ursula, as written, that “comfortable 52% margin” suggests that Trump won BY 52 percentage points rather than merely winning 52% of the total vote. The more telling thing about 2020 was that Trump, while increasing his total vote (as did Biden over Clinton’s vote; there was an overall increase of more than 1.8 million new voters in 2020 compared to 2016), he actually LOST voter share–he got 52.23% of the vote in 2016 compared to just 52.07% in 2020. And that share was down (significantly) from 2012 when Mitt Romney lost the general election but took home 57.17% of the vote (McCain won 55.45% in 2008, W won 61.09% in 2004 and 59.3% in 2000). Biden turned in the best Democratic performance since Carter actually won the state back in 1976 and, since Reagan won the state in 1980, the only GOP candidates to perform worse than Trump, yet win the state, were George H W Bush in 1992 (with a mere 40.56%) and Bob Dole in 1996 (with a mere 48.76%) but both of those elections had the Ross Perot factor involved which really cut into the GOP vote.
(Now, I’ll go back and read the rest of the article.)
I’m thinking that Beto really needs there to be two things taking place to help put him in the Governor’s Mansion: First, he needs to hope he has no Democratic opposition; and secondly, and more important, he needs Abbott to be unseated in the GOP primary. Abbott’s declared GOP opponents are even more right-wing than Abbott (Allen West lost his state GOP position for criticizing Abbott for not being “conservative” enough–and if anyone needs to be in prison more than Donald Trump, it’s Allen West; the fact that he wasn’t court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor for war crimes* is appalling enough but for him to go on and carve out a political/pundit career is just plain repulsive, but explains the GOP mindset).
*I’d have been perfectly willing to turn West over to Iraqi officials so they could try him for war crimes committed against Iraqi nationals but the Bushies had pretty much cut that option off at the proverbial knees. To the Bushies, trying “terrorists” in military courts was okay but letting American military folks get off scot-free for their part in war crimes against Iraqi civilians was off limits (and making it impossible for the Iraqi government attempt to extradite them was a very bad precedent).
Has Beto heard from matthew mcconaughey? Perry held off three challengers in 2006 and won without a runoff with 39% of the vote against a Democrat, moderate republican and a celebrity libertarian. If Mcconaughey is out then Beto has a clear field. The republican base is at least 50%, but how many of them are strayhorn republicans who might be willing to vote across party lines.
I think we need fewer actors/personalities trying for high office before they have any experience. Let them start with city or county offices first.
2022 has to be the time for change. ANY state that can vote for a Governor who puts guns and Trump ahead of their kids DESERVES what it gets. Abbott and DeSantis (and Cruz) keep trying to kill off the residents – with guns, climate, endangering life, making raped 12 year olds carry a rapists’ fetus to birth, letting them freeze to death while they head to Mexico, stealing their land to build Trump’s crashing wall, now trying to kill their children, banning masks and discouraging vaccines, then praying to Trump that he names them His Favorites, deserves what they get. Let’s cede them to Mexico — they sure don’t care much about America! YEAH BETO!