In a Twitter video posted Monday, Democrat Beto O’Rourke announced he will be running for governor of Texas. This will be his third run for a major office in as many election cycles. He narrowly lost the election for one of Texas’ Senate seats to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2018 and was in the hunt in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary for about eight months. The announcement sets up a star-studded and potentially expensive Texas governor race between O’Rourke and current Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX).
“Those in positions of public trust have stopped listening to, serving and paying attention to and trusting the people of Texas. And so they’re not focused on the things that we really want them to do,” O’Rourke said in his announcement video. “Instead, they’re focusing on the kind of extremist policies around abortion or permitless carry or even in our schools that really only divide us and keep us apart and stop us from working together on the truly big things that we want to achieve for one another.”
Gov. Abbott is running for his third term at Texas’ helm. The abortion law O’Rourke referenced was argued in the Supreme Court earlier this month. Abbott has garnered attention for supporting Texas’ new, more restrictive voting laws, as well as the several trips he’s made to the southern border to rail on President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.
O’Rourke is starting his run for Texas governor as an underdog. According to a University of Texas poll conducted late last month, Abbott holds a 9-point lead over O’Rourke, 46-37%. However, that margin is less than the 10% of people who responded that they haven’t thought about the gubernatorial race enough to have an opinion. O’Rourke will also have to overcome the aforementioned voting restrictions, which are expected to bolster Republicans’ standing in Texas’ booming suburban districts.
“The voters and the votes are there, we’ve just got to make sure that we’re reaching out and listening to and connecting with those who can decide the outcome of this election,” O’Rourke said in an interview over the weekend. “Despite the 2020 presidential election being one of the most important in our country’s history, seven million eligible Texans did not cast a ballot.”