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| Photo Credit: AP. |
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Beto O’Rourke spent his 50th birthday this week behind the wheel of his pickup in Texas, fast approaching a big moment in his uphill climb for governor.
While a road
trip through college campuses showed how the Democrat continues to draw big
crowds — a photo line at the University of Texas snaked across an outdoor plaza
in 90-degree heat — O’Rourke is still trying to close in on Republican Gov.
Greg Abbott with six weeks until Election Day, Nov. 8.
That raises
the stakes for O’Rourke on Friday night in his only debate against Abbott, who
has tried to refocus the race to his hard-line immigration measures on the
U.S.-Mexico border as anger in Texas over a new abortion ban and the Uvalde school
massacre continues flaring.
With early
voting set to begin in just over three weeks, some O’Rourke supporters are
looking for significant swings during the debate, which the former 2020
presidential candidate knows better than most can leave a lasting impression.
“Here’s the
way I see it: Most Texans are just beginning to tune into this election,”
O’Rourke said in an interview. The Democrat emphasized that Abbott started
running television spots before his campaign, which has pulled in at least $30
million and put has the two-term governor in the rare position of being
outraised.
Abbott, who
wants to stomp out Democrats’ latest attempt to flip America’s biggest
Republican-led state, isn’t ready to say this may be his tightest race.
“This game
ain’t over yet, and we’ll see how close it is when all is said and done,” he
told reporters this month.
Like many
Democrats running in November, O’Rourke is drawing on outrage over abortion
access and mass shootings, issues that have energized voters elsewhere. But as
Texas Democrats also know, those same issues have failed to carry them in past
elections.
A new Texas
abortion ban is threatening GOP support with women and has already caused
stumbles for Abbott over unpopular restrictions that make no exceptions for
rape victims. The Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 children and two
teachers has also elevated emotions in the race, with grieving parents scolding
Abbott and O’Rourke swearing at a heckler who laughed over gun control.
O’Rourke,
shrugging off recent polls that showed him trailing, pointed to traditionally
conservative Kansas rejecting an abortion ban and Democrats winning special
congressional elections in New York and Alaska as a sign of a shift in the
electorate heading into November’s midterms.
To say
O’Rourke has been here before would be true of just about anywhere in Texas.
Just as he
did in his breakthrough U.S. Senate campaign in 2018, O’Rourke has spent months
visiting nearly every corner of the almost 800-mile-wide state, driving into
the most strongly Republican counties in an effort to weaken the wall of rural
support that has helped the GOP offset losses in booming big cities and
suburbs.
He stunned
both parties four years ago by finishing within 3 percentage points of
unseating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. In the governor’s race, O’Rourke has run a
more attacking campaign but also has been forced to confront his past
positions, none more than his promise to ban AR-15-style weapons during a
Democratic presidential debate in 2019.
In the
aftermath of the Uvalde shooting, O’Rourke has called to raise minimum age to
purchase such weapons to 21, something Abbott has already ruled out.
“If Beto can
coax Abbott into a moment where there’s a stark difference on, say, gun control
I think that can have a big impact,” said Jason Villalba, a former Republican
state lawmaker. “But to do that you have to be aggressive and take large
risks.”
Villalba,
who now runs the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, said O’Rourke has had to
overcome “baggage” from his presidential campaign. Villalba believes the
fortunes of the former El Paso congressman are in the hands of newly registered
women voters and whether he can close the gap in rural counties.
Friday’s
debate is in Edinburg, along the southern border, where Abbott and Republicans
are trying to make aggressive inroads with Hispanic voters after the region,
traditionally a Democratic stronghold, made big swings toward then-President
Donald Trump in 2020. It will be first time the two candidates have been face
to face since O’Rourke confronted Abbott in Uvalde after the shooting, which
drew a mix of boors and cheers from the crowd at the time.
“I think he
just feels like, ‘I’ve had enough’ and we all feel that way,” said Mary
Zambrano, 32, who dropped in to see O’Rourke at an Austin gymnasium on
Saturday. “At this point, you have to go all in.”
Associated
Press writer Acacia Coronado contributed to this report.
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