San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Uvalde, border dominate debate in Texas contest
EDINBURG, Texas — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday night that Texas would send busloads of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to more cities, while Democrat challenger Beto O'Rourke pledged tighter gun laws as parents whose children were killed in the Uvalde school shooting stood outside an auditorium hosting the only debate before November's election.
The promises reflected how Abbott and O'Rourke are eager to spotlight starkly different issues with just three weeks before early voting begins in a competitive Texas governor's race that is one of most closely watched — and expensive — of the 2022 midterms.
On abortion, which is now banned in Texas, Abbott didn't waver over signing a law that allows no exceptions for rape victims as the restrictions create stumbles for some Republicans who have been wary of voter backlash.
But Abbott was more assured while defending his dramatic steps on the Texas border that are the centerpiece of his campaign for a third term. Sharing a stage with O'Rourke for the first time, Abbott boasted about a $4 billion operation that has included migrant jails and buses to New York, Chicago and Washington.
“There will be other cities in the future that also will be on the receiving end of migrants, because we will continue to have to move migrants because Joe Biden continues to allow more illegal immigrants to come into the state of Texas,” Abbott said.
O'Rourke called the mission a failure and attacked Abbott over the number of migrant crossings remaining high despite the governor's escalating mission over the past year. “We are eight years into his time as governor, and this is what we have on our border,” O'Rourke said.
The debate had no live audience, but outside the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, parents of some of the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre stood in support of O'Rourke after denouncing Abbott over his rejection of new gun laws.
The presence of five Uvalde families in Edinburg, a border region that has emerged as a central backdrop for November's midterm elections, underscored the sustained anger over one of America's deadliest classroom shootings.
Polls show a single-digit race, but the stakes in the debate were especially high for O'Rourke in what remains an uphill climb to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas in nearly 30 years.
Abbott, a potential 2024 presidential contender who in eight years as governor has loosened Texas' firearm restrictions and signed a law doing away with background checks for concealed handguns, waved off calls for stricter gun controls since the Uvalde attack, which also killed two teachers.
Uvalde families have put at the top of their demands raising the minimum age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle like the one used in the shooting from 18 to 21 years old. Florida raised the minimum age weeks after the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.