In a sequel sure to be every bit as beloved as The Hangover Part III, failed Senatorial and Presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke has announced that he’s running for high office yet again, this time for Texas Governor.
For months, Texas Democrats have failed to field a single serious candidate to challenge Governor Greg Abbott’s reelection bid. But today, Beto O’Rourke is announcing in Texas Monthly that he is entering the 2022 gubernatorial race. The former three-term congressman from El Paso who had run losing bids for U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018 and for president in 2020, is not expected to face any serious challengers for his party’s nomination. He will seek to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994, ending the longest statewide losing streak in America for either party.
It will be an uphill battle. Abbott, who has raised more money than any governor in U.S. history, had $55 million in his campaign treasury as of July 15, the last time he reported the size of his war chest. While polling has found that Abbott is not as popular as he once was, O’Rourke’s numbers are worse. A University of Texas poll conducted in October found 43 percent of Texans approved of the job Abbott is doing and 48 percent disapproved, but only 35 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of O’Rourke against 50 percent who had an unfavorable view.
At this point O’Rourke is anything but a fresh face. But before we enumerate O’Rourke’s many negatives, let’s give Bobby Francis his due and list the assets he brings to the race:
First and foremost, he does the work. He’s an indefatigable campaigner who constantly gets out and meets potential voters. Given the fact that so many high profile statewide Democratic candidates have not done that over the last twenty plus years (I’m looking at you, Ricardo Sanchez), it’s no small thing.
His previous campaign organizations have tended to be more notably competent than other high profile Texas Democrats. (I’m looking at you, Wendy Davis.)
His “hyerpscale” outreach, IT, data and comms teams were particularly praised.
He has a high national profile, generating a ton of positive MSM press.
He has an huge, national list of previous contributors to raise money from.
He still has those “boyish, Kennedyesque good lucks” reporters love to swoon over.
He’s facing an incumbent whose popularity has taken a hit.
He currently has no serious competitor in the Democratic Party primary, allowing him to focus on the general election fight.
However, O’Rourke has an even more daunting list of disadvantages for this race:
See all those positives above? He had all those for his Senatorial and Presidential races as well (save the no serious competitors bit for the Presidential run), and it wasn’t enough to propel him to victory. In the heavyweight class, O’Rourke’s record is 0-2.
In his Senatorial run in particular, he has just about every single thing going his way (a clear nomination path, a midterm election with a polarizing Republican in the White House, an incumbent (Ted Cruz) damaged by his own unsuccessful run, and more fawning political coverage and money than any Democratic senate candidate in the history of the Republic), and it still wasn’t enough to win Texas.
In his presidential run, O’Rourke moved so hard left on a range of issues, from gun control to open borders to taxes, that he’s all but unelectable in Texas.
As I mentioned before, the very issues Abbott is must vulnerable on are the ones where O’Rourke doesn’t have the standing or positions to challenge him:
- Border security? While the Rio Grande Valley is in the midst of a Republican upswell over the issue, Beto wants to tear down the border wall.
- Ice storm? Beto wants to keep pouring money into the same green energy boondoggles that couldn’t keep the lights on.
- Flu Manchu lockdowns? Beto wanted to keep them going longer.
Unlike the near perfect year of 2018, Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere have taken a hard turn toward the Republican Party.
If anything, Biden’s disasterous open borders policies have made Democrats even more unpopular in the Valley than they were in 2020.
Indeed, the 2022 electoral environment looks to be much more challenging for Democrats than 2018. Supply chain issues and inflation have ordinary Americans furious at a Democratic Party that promised a “return to normality” in 2020. Right now, Republicans a 10 point lead in generic ballot questions, the largest since they’ve done polling on the issue. All polls should be taken with a grain of salt, but those are substantial headwinds.
When O’Rourke and Abbott were both on the ballot in different races, Abbott got 600,000 more votes than O’Rourke. That’s an awful big gap to make up in a favorable year.
The issue that Democrats are most fired up about, abortion, didn’t seem to help Wendy Davis in 2014. Any single-issue pro-abortion voter was already backing O’Rourke over Cruz in 2018, and it wasn’t enough.
O’Rourke still has a reputation as an intellectual lightweight.
Very, very few American politicians have lost two profile races in a row only to go on to win a third. Richard Nixon is the only one that comes to mind, but 1968 was a long time ago.
Having hoovered up record amounts of cash only to lose two previous races, donors may be hesitant to keep throwing good money after bad. As a commenter here observed, “Beto Campaigns in Texas are where progressive money goes to die.”
With less than a year before election day, O’Rourke’s official entrance to the race is later than typical for a winning candidate. A relatively minor point, but O’Roruke may regret dithering for a couple of months rather than campaigning and fundraising.
Could the dynamics of the race change to be more favorable to O’Rourke? Sure. Things change all the time. If one of Abbott’s challengers catches fire, he might be forced to spend time and money on a runoff. Abbott could suffer a gaffe or high-profile medical problem. (Unlikely; Abbott has previously been a pretty hardy campaigner (wheelchair not withstanding), and he’s the sort of careful, polished politician that doesn’t tend to make gaffes.) The economy could improve. Inflation could indeed prove transitory, as it was 1980-1982. I rather doubt those last two, because the people in charge seem hellbent on making everything worse and Paul Volcker is dead.
In 2018, O’Rourke ran the most competitive statewide campaign any Democrat has run this century…and it wasn’t enough. That’s probably more of a ceiling than floor, and O’Rourke’s floor may turn out to be a lot lower than observers thought when he was a fresh-faced newcomer…
Tags: 2022 Election, 2022 Texas Governor's Race, abortion, Beto O'Rourke, Border Controls, Democrats, Elections, Greg Abbott, Hispanics, Rio Grande Valley, Texas
This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 11:08 AM and is filed under Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Perhaps Bobby Francis was encouraged to run for Governor by people who privately count on him losing (again), thus making him unlikely to try for President in ‘24?
Beto’s a furry.
Absolutely agree with your analysis, particularly of Beto’s strengths. He is an indefatigable campaigner. Something you implied but didn’t say directly is that when Beto ran against Cruz in 2018 he was still relatively unknown and a fresh face. Because of the fawning news coverage then, he seemed to be much more capable and normal than he does now.
That advantage broke down in the 2020 campaign for the Dem nomination for president. There were a lot of stories about him doing stuff on the campaign trail that was just…weird. My theory is that all of the 2018 attention went to his head and he couldn’t quite handle it when he was just another fish in a much bigger pond and he started “acting out.”
I think he’s just trying to recapture the “magic” of that 2018 run, but as you point out 2022 will be a VERY different year in a VERY different landscape.
Yes – Paul Volker is dead – he had the tools to reverse the inflation rates that were wrecking the economy – don’t forget, though that he would never have used those tools without the backing of Reagan. Volker was a man of the deep state and would do the bidding of whomever was his superior.