DALLAS — Beto O’Rourke will recommit to delegates at the Texas Democratic Party convention Friday in Dallas, but flirt with independents and Republicans on the outside.
The former El Paso congressman and Democratic nominee for governor needs a united front from Democrats to have a chance to upend incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in November. A recent poll showed him trailing the governor by only 5 percentage points.
But wooing Democrats alone is insufficient to win a statewide race in reliably red Texas.
So when he accepts his party’s nomination for governor at the convention in Dallas this week, O’Rourke will give the sweet eye to voters beyond his party’s base.
“We just have to continue to reach out to everyone. It cannot just be Democrats,” he told The Dallas Morning News. “I’m going to tell my fellow Democrats that are at this convention [that] it’s got to be about all of us.”
O’Rourke said he’s more interested in unifying Texas than simply rallying the Democratic Party. He said that message contrasts well against the Abbott-led Republicans.
“The other party wants to exclude, wants to make people afraid of one another, is trying to find enemies among us,” O’Rourke said. “We’re about bringing people together and inviting everyone in, and we don’t care who you voted for, for president last time. We don’t care about the letter next to your name. We just care about delivering for Texas.”
Analysts are skeptical whether O’Rourke can appeal to voters beyond Democrats the way he did in the 2018 Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz. He lost by 2.6 percentage points, but unleashed a grassroots army that netted votes for down-ballot Democrats.
And then he ran for president.
His ill-fated 2020 White House bid exposed left-leaning positions on gun control and immigration that could hurt him with moderate to conservative Lone Star voters.
But more critically, he took another loss, which removed some of the shine from his Senate bid.
If O’Rourke can’t maneuver around the mess he made when running for president, he’ll fall short of beating Abbott.
“It hurt him. It tied him to some unpopular positions and created a perception that he’s an opportunist,” said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. “He got tagged as a chaser and that’s a tough position for him to be. … He has less crossover appeal than he used to have.”
But Rottinghaus added that O’Rourke has become a more “mature” campaigner and understands what to do to win. Additionally, he has issues to push that call into question Abbott’s job performance. They include concerns about the state’s energy grid, the banning of abortion, liberal gun laws in the era of mass shootings and the need to bolster health care and education.
“Certain issues are going to cut his way, and it’ll help him with constituencies that the Democrats need to have,” Rottinghaus said. “If that message can penetrate, it’s a recipe for possible success.”
O’Rourke says he’s in a better position than in 2018, when he was new to the statewide scene. His campaign organization is developed, with a list of donors and operatives across the state.
“That allows us to speak not only to the traditional reliable voters, but those who’ve been targets of voter suppression and voter intimidation,” O’Rourke said.
As for his “hell, yes” pledge on confiscating AR-15s and other assault-style weapons, O’Rourke says he’s more in line with Texas voters than Abbott, who signed into law a permitless carry bill against the advice of law enforcement officials.
Lisa Turner, state director of the Democratic research group called the Lone Star Project, said O’Rourke should play up his stand on issues.
“I want to hear his vision for Texas,” she said. “And I want to hear exactly how he is different from Greg Abbott. I want him to draw that distinction.”
Crafting a message
O’Rourke told The News that his convention address would be a clarion call for Texans to solve the state’s lingering problems and reject Abbott’s policies.
He said he’ll discuss his plans to fix the grid, expand Medicaid to improve health care, restore reproductive rights for women, curb gun violence, help retain teachers and raise the minimum wage.
Democrats hope to get a boost in the November general election from voters upset with the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down constitutional abortion rights. There has also been energy on the left in response to mass shootings, including the May massacre in Uvalde that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.
“We’re going to focus on common ground and common sense and allow them to have the extremism and the fringe politics,” O’Rourke said. “We’re going to bring people together at a time when Greg Abbott and the Republican Party is trying to divide us by our differences.”
Abbott has cast O’Rourke as too liberal for Texas, part of his warning to conservatives that “socialists” are trying to change how Texans live.
“A great bit of this campaign for the next 102 days is going to be him reliving his spectacular disaster running for president and all the things he said,” said Dave Carney, Abbott’s chief campaign strategist. “”It’s all contrary to what the vast majority of Texans believe.”
The governor’s campaign team will be in Dallas during the Democratic Party convention with a litany of gimmicks, including parking an ambulance they call a “truth response unit” near the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. During the convention Abbott will attempt to link O’Rourke with President Joe Biden with billboard ads on I-35 north from Austin to Dallas.
O’Rourke dismisses the notion that he’s too liberal for Texas.
“He is going to try to scare people about me because he’s unable to defend his record as governor,” O’Rourke said. “He cannot run on his record. He cannot defend the indefensible.”
Is he the same guy?
In 2018, O’Rourke entered the convention in Fort Worth with the swagger of a rock star.
Is he still that guy?
“It’s a different type of race, but I wouldn’t say that there’s less excitement,” said Manny Garcia, former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “It’s just different in nature, but certainly folks, in the past year in particular, have really seen Greg Abbott’s failure of leadership.”
Garcia said he likes that O’Rourke is reaching out beyond the convention.
“This is the kind of situation where somebody needs to bring a whole coalition of voters together — Democrats, independents, and some Republicans,” Garcia said. “Someone has to say this is the pathway forward. These are things we need to get done at the state level.”
Turner, the Democratic strategist, said O’Rourke has blended what propelled him in 2018 with a toughness needed for this year’s governor’s race.
“His energy and his vision and his belief that our best days can be ahead of us is still there and his passion still comes through,” she said. “I do see a willingness now to draw that comparison with his opponent.”.
Ed Espinoza, executive director of the liberal group Progress Texas, said O’Rourke is neither better nor worse than he was in 2018.
“He’s not better or diminished, he’s just different,” Espinoza said. “He’s got more maturity in his return, and that just isn’t gray hair. He is a man who has experienced politics at the highest level and had successes and losses.”
Espinoza said O’Rourke should continue his big tent approach.
“There are Republicans who feel adrift and are looking for a home,” he said. “Beto has to let those Republicans looking for a home know that they have one in him.”
Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said O’Rourke needed to make a clear contrast between Abbott and himself while uniting the party.
“He also needs to identify innovative strategies to get the vote out,” West said.
____
