O’rourke ponders running for governor
Democrat Beto O’rourke has left no doubt that he’s weighing a run for governor next year.
“You know what, it’s something I’m going to think about,” O’rourke said in an exclusive interview on an El Paso radio station earlier this week.
And in case anyone missed the interview, a political action committee O’rourke started called Powered By People is circulating it on social media.
The former congressman from El Paso who lost a close race for U.S. Senate in 2018 told KLAQ host Buzz Adams that Texas has “suffered perhaps more than any other” state during the pandemic and criticized Gov. Greg Abbott for a “complete indifference” to helping local leaders try to save lives.
“I want to make sure we have someone in the highest office in our state who’s going to make sure that all of us are OK,” the 48-year-old O’rourke said. “And especially those communities that so often don’t get the resources or attention or the help, like El Paso.”
Abbott’s spokesman wouldn’t comment Wednesday on O’rourke’s potential bid.
“We don’t take anything for granted,” Abbott’s political strategist, Dave Carney, told the Dallas
Morning News in an interview two weeks ago. “There’ll be a general election opponent, and (Democrats) will put a lot of effort in and they’ll raise a lot of money.”
While it feels like the 2020 elections just ended, Texas’ early 2022 primary schedule puts potential statewide candidates on a fast track if they have hopes of seriously competing for offices like governor or lieutenant governor.
The Texas political primaries are March 1 — giving candidates running for the primary just over a year to raise money in one of the most expensive states in the nation for campaigning. The filing period to get on the ballot starts Nov. 14.
Abbott, who already has said he’s seeking re-election for a third 4-year term, has already been flexing his financial muscle. Abbott has almost $38 million sitting in his campaign account to fend off would-be challengers.
But if 2018 showed anything, it’s that O’rourke easily can raise that kind of money with a national fundraising base that helped him raise $79 million against Sen. Ted Cruz.
Still, Cruz was able to win by 2.6 percent of the vote — the closest a Democrat has come to winning a U.S. Senate seat in Texas since the 1980s.
O’rourke continued that fundraising through Powered by People. Through the PAC, he raised nearly $19 million in 2020 that was spent on voter registration programs and trying to help flip the Texas House to Democratic control.
But Abbott, 63, might have more to worry about than just the general election as he seeks his third term.
Abbott has been under siege from some in the Republican Party of Texas for his handling of the pandemic, including party Chairman Allen West, a former Florida congressman who now lives in Garland.
West has opposed Abbott’s mask requirement, called for a special session to curb Abbott’s executive powers during the pandemic and was part of a lawsuit seeking to overturn Abbott’s expansion of early voting last November.