Beto, cold front should give Dems a big boost

It’s tough for Texas Democrats to be hopeful about winning the governorship.

It has been more than 27 years since a Democrat held the office, and it’s hard to see when or how the Republican grip on power ends.

Republicans have drawn the boundaries of legislative districts in their favor, and they’ve made voting more difficult, especially for those they’ve sized up as unlikely to support them.

The latter are overwhelming young, brown, black, poor and reside in cities. All of those categories are growing in population, but not necessarily in electoral influence because of gerrymandering and voting restrictions.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for re-election this year, has raised money that will take him far beyond the March primary. By the end of December, he had collected close to $19 million in donations and now has about $65 million.

Still, there may be grounds for Democrats to hope. For one thing, Beto O’rourke is running for governor. For another, the weather will be very cold today, and that can’t help but remind voters how utterly Abbott and the Republican leadership failed Texas during and after the deadly February freeze of 2021.

Charismatic challenger

O’rourke, a Democrat from El Paso, is a formidable candidate who can motivate voters and donors from one coast to the other and in Texas.

The former congressman and presidential candidate surprised Republicans and Democrats alike in 2018, when he raised $79 million for his nearly successful effort to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — who, in case you’d forgotten, snuck off to Cancun during the February freeze.

O’rourke’s campaign for governor is just getting started, and in six weeks it raised more than $7.2 million.

That sum came from more than 115,600 individual donations. None was from a political action committee , and O’rourke isn’t shy about pointing out the distinction between his fundraising and Abbott’s.

He said that “while Abbott is taking million-dollar checks from the CEOS who profited off the grid collapse, we’re receiving support from people all over Texas who want to ensure that our state finally leads in great jobs, world class schools and the ability to see a doctor.”

In trying to define his opponent, the heart of any successful campaign, O’rourke has focused on the governor’s dismal handling of the pandemic.

He faults Abbott’s for lack of trust — in women to manage their own reproductive health; in businesses to do what they must to stay afloat in the time of COVID; in school districts to decide how best to secure the safety of students and teachers; and in local leaders to lead.

O’rourke has lit into Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s border security initiative. The governor has sent Texas National Guard troops to the border to put up fencing, support local sheriffs and arrest migrants on state trespassing charges — itself a form of trespass on the federal government’s exclusive authority over border enforcement.

The initiative has hurt morale: Some guardsmen feel they’re props in a political stunt, and some have had trouble getting paid, as my colleague Sig Christenson reported recently.

Recalling the freeze

O’rourke also has hammered the governor over what he calls the “Abbott tax,” the higher utility bills that ratepayers must pay because of last February’s grid failure “in the energy capital of North America.”

The price of natural gas and other fuel on the spot market went through the roof during the freeze. Consumers will be paying for those inflated charges for years. But that wasn’t the highest cost exacted by the winter storm. Hundreds died. Some literally froze to death.

During a virtual campaign event with nine Texas mayors last week, O’rourke commended them for stepping up during the pandemic.

“This is where the real leadership in Texas is right now,” he said, joined by Mayors Steve Adler of Austin and Juan Trey Mendez of Brownsville.

Their biggest hope is to have a partner in Austin, Republican or Democrat, who’ll meet them halfway, O’rourke said.

“They want a governor who will take their calls, or reach out to them ahead of time,” he said. “I will be that partner.”

O’rourke’s campaign spent the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend helping people register to vote in what he called “the hardest state in the nation in which to vote.”

Democrats can only hope his campaign themes resonate. Given the GOP’S decades-long dominance in Texas, it’s hard for them to summon much optimism about 2022.

But then again ... today’s temperatures will be as low as 29 degrees, which may stir up memories of that chilly, deadly week in February. It might help Texans reconsider their vote and recall that a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature did nothing to address the state’s real problems.

The last day to register to vote in the primary election is Jan. 31.