Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is a 49-year-old ex-congressman who served the 16th congressional district of Texas from 2013 to 2019. However, Mr. O’Rourke is more famous for his impressive 2018 U.S. Senate run against Senator Ted Cruz, after losing the seat for Senate, O’Rourke also ran for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, and after losing that, he is now running for Governor of Texas, challenging incumbent Greg Abbott. But the real question is; can he finally win after losing two elections?
In 2018, when then-Congressman Beto O’Rourke filed to run against Ted Cruz, no one really expected much since Texas is ultra Republican. The last Democratic Senator to have served Texas was Bob Krueger, who only served for about 6 months in 1993. Cruz ended up winning the race by about 223,000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points. This was the closest Senate race in Texas since 1978 when Bob Kreuger ran before being appointed in 1993. Beto raised over $80 million, but this still wasn’t enough to tear down the Republican wall in Texas.
After losing the election, Beto was off-screen for a while. But many knew he would have a political comeback. Since Beto had a great showing in 2018, many believed he proved to be a vital candidate, one that could potentially beat Trump in 2020, as some predicted him to be one of the few who could unseat him.
On March 14, 2019, Beto O’Rourke announced his campaign for President. When he first entered, he was seen as a powerhouse. On the day he announced, he was able to fundraise over $6 million, then after the first 48 hours of his announcement, he was unable to raise the same amount for about 100 days, which was ultimately a major faction in him being unsuccessful with his run. Although he was seen as an energized Democrat following his Senate race last year, he began his White House as a fan favorite but failed to garnish enough support. Beto officially ended his campaign on November 1, 2019, and eventually endorsed current President Joe Biden.
The Texas gubernatorial election will take place in November of 2022, and the most recent polling shows Governor Abbott leading Beto nearly 47% to 37%. As of right now, it doesn’t seem like Beto could beat Abbott, or at least beat him by a comfortable margin. He has to put everything into this race, or all is lost for Mr. Rourke and his career, as a loss in this race will surely retire him from the political world altogether.
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