Former congressman Beto O’Rourke is making his Texas gubernatorial run official.
“I’m running for governor,” O’Rourke said in a tweet Monday morning. “Together, we can push past the small and divisive politics that we see in Texas today — and get back to the big, bold vision that used to define Texas. A Texas big enough for all of us.”
“It’s not going to be easy. But it is possible,” O’Rourke said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his announcement. “I do believe, very strongly, from listening to people in this state that they’re very unhappy with the direction that (Gov.) Greg Abbott has taken Texas.”
O’Rourke’s return sets up one of 2022’s highest-profile — and potentially most expensive — races for governor. Abbott, a Republican, is seeking a third term and has put Texas on the vanguard of hard-right policymaking in state capitals and emerged as a national figure. A challenge from O’Rourke, a media-savvy former congressman with a record of generating attention and cash, could tempt Democrats nationwide to pour millions of dollars into trying — again — to flip Texas.
The outlook for Democrats nationwide is even worse heading into next year’s midterm elections. Texas has not elected a Democratic governor since Ann Richards in 1990. And freshly gerrymandered political maps, signed into law by Abbott in October, bolster Republicans’ standing in booming suburban districts that have been drifting away from the party. That could mean fewer competitive races and lower turnout.
O’Rourke, 49, will have to win over not only hundreds of thousands of new voters but some of his old ones. When O’Rourke lost to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by just 2.5 percentage points, Abbott won reelection by double digits that same year, reflecting a large number of Texans who voted for O’Rourke and for the GOP governor. That crossover appeal was a hallmark of a Senate campaign propelled by energetic rallies, ideological blurriness and unscripted livestreams on social media. But as a presidential candidate, O’Rourke molded himself into a liberal champion who called for slashing immigration enforcement and mandatory gun buybacks.
O’Rourke officially announced his candidacy in a two-minute video, in which he directly speaks to the camera and criticizes a GOP agenda that he says ignores things voters “actually agree on,” such as expanding Medicare and legalizing marijuana. “Those in positions of public trust have stopped listening to, serving and paying attention to the people of Texas,” he said.
