DALLAS — Buoyed by stout fundraising and a large grass-roots team, Beto O’Rourke on Friday sought to energize Democrats for his marquee race to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
“We’ve got to bring everything that we have to this fight, because we’re fighting for the people of Texas,” O’Rourke told The Dallas Morning News before his speech. “I’m encouraged by the energy here, by the number of people who’ve contributed donations and money, but also their time. We have 70,000 volunteers strong and counting right now.”
O’Rourke was the keynote speaker at the Texas Democratic Party Convention in Dallas, where he tried to appeal not only to Democrats, but also disaffected Republican and independent voters.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to do this,” he said. “I ask you to keep the faith, keep up the fight, and let’s get out here and get out there and go win this thing.”
For O’Rourke and other Democrats, winning will be difficult.
No Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994. And the last Democratic Party governor was Ann Richards, who won election to one term in 1990 before losing to Republican George W. Bush. Republicans enjoy a structural advantage in Texas statewide elections because more of them vote than Democrats, so O’Rourke needs a massive tide of new voters or GOP defectors to overcome Abbott.
The Abbott-O’Rourke clash will be one of the most watched races in the country.
But since Texas has proven to be a reliably red state, O’Rourke may have a tough time selling his liberal policies to the conservative voters that dominate the electorate.
Abbott’s campaign team, in Dallas this week to counter the themes at the Democratic convention, dismissed O’Rourke’s speech as part of “Beto’s reinvention convention.”
On Friday, former House Speaker Dennis Bonnen lashed out at O’Rourke, charging him with being too liberal for Texas.
“Beto is, I think, a decent man, but he can’t pick a position,” Bonnen said during a news conference in Dallas. “It’s one of his real challenges in life. He can’t decide whether he wants to be United States senator, president or governor. And the truth of it is, the reason he can’t be any of those things is because his liberal, socialist policies don’t fit the voters of Texas.”
During his keynote speech O’Rourke blasted Abbott for not fortifying the state’s power grid, conducting a campaign against transgender children, driving inflation with stunts at the border and doing nothing to stop mass shootings, such as the one that occurred in Uvalde.
”Greg Abbott is chaos. He is corruption. He is cruelty and he is incompetent,” he said. “But he is not Texas and he is not us.”
The former El Paso congressman is also campaigning on the need for gun control to stop mass shootings, the expansion of Medicaid to improve health care, more money for public education and reproductive rights.
O’Rourke contrasted the themes in Dallas this week with the tone of last month’s Republican Party convention in Houston.
“They want to secede from the union. They won’t recognize the results of the last presidential election,” O’Rourke said of Abbott and the Texas Republican Party before his speech. “They call homosexuality a quote ‘abnormal behavior.’ Here in this convention we’re focused on jobs and economic growth, reducing inflation, supporting public school educators and expanding Medicaid, so everyone can see a doctor and be healthy enough and well enough to live to their full potential.”
O’Rourke entered the convention with considerable momentum.
His campaign said Friday that he’d raised $27.63 million between Feb. 20 and June 30, the most for a state-level candidate in Texas in one reporting period. Over the same period, Abbott raised $24.9 million.
Polls show a tightening race. According to a recent University of Houston survey, Abbott leads O’Rourke by 5 points.
On Friday, O’Rourke said it was important to turn his fundraising and improving poll numbers into energy.
He stopped by his campaign’s booth in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center exhibit hall and took pictures with supporters for more than an hour.
“He’s articulate. He’s brave,” said Terry Zimmerman, a delegate and retired minister from McKinney. “His values seem to be consistent with the values of most people I know.”
Texas Rep. Rhetta Andrews Bowers, a Democrat, was in the exhibit hall when O’Rourke met supporters.
“We certainly have to make sure that we’re behind him,” Bowers said. “He’s got to knock on the doors and continue to talk to as many voters across the state of Texas as he can.”
At times O’Rourke exhorted his campaign team to be more energetic. And he called out the names of the hometowns of selfie-takers as a cowbell rang for first-time volunteers.
“I need some noise,” O’Rourke told his team. “We need to turn up the energy.”
O’Rourke said he hopes to turn that energy into an upset victory over Abbott.
“We’re going to knock on every door of every eligible voter in Texas,” he said. “It’s time to get this state moving in the right direction again.”
After his convention speech Friday night, O’Rourke joined supporters in downtown Dallas for a reception and concert.
