Beto O'Rourke, Veronica Escobar urge El Paso students to vote at UTEP rally

Martha Pskowski, El Paso Times
·4 min read
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With early voting numbers trailing behind the 2018 mid-term, Democratic candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, rallied students at UTEP Thursday.

On the next-to-last day for early voting, O'Rourke and Escobar highlighted the stakes of this year's election for young Texans. Dozens followed O’Rourke into the polling site at the UTEP student union to cast their ballots.

O'Rourke has courted young voters and college students throughout his campaign to unseat incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Whether the final push for voter turn-out will be enough to close the gap with Abbott will become clear after the polls close on Election Day, Nov. 8.

“Young voters are going to win this election,” O’Rourke said. “So Amy and I chose this early voting location to cast our ballots. It makes me really proud of the way El Pasoans are turning out right now.”

Beto O'Rourke, El Paso native and Democratic candidate for Texas governor, speaks during a get-out-the-vote rally Thursday at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Beto O'Rourke, El Paso native and Democratic candidate for Texas governor, speaks during a get-out-the-vote rally Thursday at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Escobar, who filled O'Rourke's seat in Congress when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2018, is facing Republican opponent Irene Armendariz-Jackson in her re-election bid. Expected to win with a wide margin, Escobar joined the UTEP rally to support O'Rourke, a long-time political ally.

“Turn out has not been as high as it was in 2018,” Escobar said. “We can change that.”

More:First week of early voting election numbers lagging behind 2018 totals

Democrats in El Paso champion youth vote

O'Rourke continues to criss-cross the state to get out the vote but chose to return home to El Paso to cast his own ballot. Close to 200 people joined the 11 a.m. rally Thursday, most of them college students. The candidate will be back in El Paso Tuesday night as election returns come in.

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego opened the event, calling Escobar and O'Rourke "the best one-two punch in the country."

“We live in a time where the power of our democracy is under attack,” said Alyssa Martinez, a UTEP student and college Democrats member. “We need to take our power back.”

O'Rourke touched on gun control, access to higher education and reproductive rights in his remarks. His comments in support of legalizing marijuana garnered an enthusiastic round of cheering.

Beto O’Rourke arrives at a UTEP rally on Thursday to cast his vote at an early-voting site at the university before heading back to Dallas to continue the campaign.
Beto O’Rourke arrives at a UTEP rally on Thursday to cast his vote at an early-voting site at the university before heading back to Dallas to continue the campaign.

Wearing a maroon "Uvalde" hat, he spoke about visiting the Uvalde city cemetery on Monday to honor Day of the Dead with families who lost children in the May 2022 mass shooting. Nineteen elementary school students and two of their teachers were killed by a mass shooter armed with an assault-style rifle.

"People say, why am I making ofrendas to my 10-year-old-daughter?" O'Rourke said. "No good reason."

"This decision before us is crystal clear," he said. "If we re-elect Greg Abbott there will be more school shootings. There will be more massacres like the one we saw here in El Paso."

O'Rourke was referring to the Aug. 3, 2019, massacre at an El Paso Walmart. A gunman, armed with an assault-style rifle, killed 23 people while they shopped for groceries on a Saturday morning. The gunman, who is awaiting trial, told authorities he traveled to El Paso to target "Mexicans."

It was the second time in the past month that O'Rourke visited the UTEP campus during his marathon campaign for governor. On Oct. 11, O'Rourke stopped at his hometown university during his tour of Texas colleges. UTEP is among the half of Texas public universities with an on-campus polling site.

“We’re sick and tired of Abbott,” said Jessica Calderon, a 19-year-old UTEP student. “We want someone else.”

“We feel like Beto hears us better because he’s from El Paso,” her twin sister Jennifer Calderon chimed in.

More:Where can I vote? Here are El Paso County early voting locations

Early voting trails 2018

Texas Democrats have bet on increasing voter turn-out and building on the momentum of the 2018 race, when O'Rourke came close to unseating Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. But turnout in this year's midterms is lagging behind 2018 levels so far.

By the end of Wednesday's early voting, 75,900 El Pasoans had turned in their ballots, between early voting stations and mail-in ballots. At the same point in 2018, 114,542 El Pasoans had voted. There are 506,696 total registered voters in El Paso County.

Supporters of Beto O’Rourke wait for the Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate to arrive at a rally at UTEP.
Supporters of Beto O’Rourke wait for the Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate to arrive at a rally at UTEP.

Escobar said that Texas Republicans have intentionally made it more difficult for young people to vote.

O'Rourke said his events on campuses are succeeding in getting more students to the polls.

“When we show up where young people are, they turn up,” he said.

More:Who's on the ballot? Meet the candidates running in the El Paso 2022 midterm election

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Beto O'Rourke, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar rally UTEP students to vote