'My strategy... is to be with the people': Beto O'Rourke makes his pitch to Texas

Beto O’Rourke entered Midland’s Martin Luther King Community Center to the cheers of 400 attendees on Wednesday. After his remarks, a long line of supporters wrapped around the auditorium, waiting to shake his hand and take pictures.

By noon Thursday, he was in Snyder, ready to do it all over again. Then Lubbock that evening for a crowd of 800. Then Friday in Amarillo, where 400 people showed up. In the span of three days, the candidate covered more than 600 miles and spoke to audiences that totaled over 2,000 people.

“We're trying to meet as many people, go to as many places and connect with as many of our fellow Texans as we possibly can,” O’Rourke said. “We’re always in motion; it’s nonstop.”

O’Rourke wrapped up the first week of his "Drive for Texas" campaign tour, which kicked off Tuesday in his hometown of El Paso. He will drive over 5,000 miles in a grey Toyota Tundra in the coming weeks and months to visit more than 75 communities across Texas.

The El Paso native has inched within five points of incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the polls. Now O'Rourke faces a task as daunting as his tour itinerary: finding common ground with moderate and conservative voters in a polarized political climate.

In the first week of the Drive for Texas, O’Rourke focused on issues that he thinks can cut across the political divide, like property taxes, public schools and access to quality health care. He chose his words carefully on gun control and immigration, hoping to attract undecided voters without alienating his long-time supporters.

O’Rourke is counting, in part, on the marathon tour to meet new voters in the hopes of upsetting Abbott in the Nov. 8 general election.

“My strategy, as simple and unsophisticated as it is, is to be with the people,” he said. “I am just grateful I get the chance to do that.”

Beto O' Rourke visiting voters in every county by November

O’Rourke plans to visit all of Texas’ 254 counties, as he did while running against Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate in 2018. The approach was a deviation from many statewide Democratic campaigns, which focus on Texas’ largest cities.

He started the tour among his biggest fans and supporters, an evening of mariachi music at the Lowbrow Palace, a popular hangout in his border city. Wednesday’s first stop was in Pecos and then on to Midland in the heart of the Permian Basin oil fields.

It’s hard to imagine a place more strongly tied to Texas Republican identity than Midland. It is Laura Bush’s hometown and former presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush also lived there. Donald Trump won 77% of Midland County’s votes in the 2020 presidential election.

But 441 people turned out to hear Beto O’Rourke make his case that the majority of Texans can get behind issues like gun safety, improving public schools and expanding Medicaid. When a handful of opponents wearing Trump apparel tried to disrupt O’Rourke’s speech, he invited them to stay and listen. They kept shouting and a police officer escorted them out.

During the question and answer, a woman wearing a “I support American oil” t-shirt said she was considering voting Democrat for the first time but was worried about her children who work in the oil industry.

“I want protect and expand the energy jobs we have here, including oil and gas jobs,” O’Rourke responded. “And expand on that with renewable energy resources, because that is the way the world is moving ultimately.”

Midland Precinct 3 Judge Billy Johnson said the crowd wasn’t only Democrats.

“Republicans and independents, there are some here, and if they hear his message and vote in their best interest, they have to know that Beto is their guy,” Johnson said.

Audience members brought up their day-to-day worries, whether struggling to get medical treatment in rural Texas or feeling under attack as a public school teacher.

Annelisa Gonzales, 28, came out to hear O'Rourke in her hometown of Pecos. She is entering her second year as a sixth grade teacher and said without more gun control measures, she is scared to go back to the classroom.

"I really don't think that protecting kids from gun violence should be part of my job description," she said.

Gonzales named several problems in Texas public schools she would like to see fixed: low teacher salaries, the onerous requirements of STAAR standardized testing and banning books in libraries.

"I've supported Beto since he came on the scene," she said. "I tend to be skeptical of politicians, but I think he will push us in the right direction."

Beto O'Rourke: It's even better when there's someone who hasn't made up their mind yet

From Midland, the team drove to Snyder, a town of 11,000 on the edge of the Permian Basin, where wind energy has gained a foothold, in addition to oil and gas. Snyder is the county seat of Scurry County, where in his 2018 Senate run, O’Rourke got just 14.7% of the vote or 642 votes.

DeeDee Lynch was in the audience the last time O’Rourke visited Snyder in 2018.

“There was a whole room of people who didn’t know each other,” she said.  “But because Beto brought us together, we formed a small, fledging group that is now the Scurry County Democrats.”

This time around, the Scurry County Democrats hosted O'Rourke for a town hall, drawing a crowd of 188 to the Scurry County Library.

“Our slogan is, ‘Yes, we do exist,’” Lynch said as volunteers stacked chairs. “We want to make a safe place for people who have differing opinions.”

Several attendees said they are hesitant to discuss politics in town because supporting Democrats is taboo. Lynch said they struggled to secure a venue for the event because residents were concerned about backlash for hosting O’Rourke. Approximately a dozen members of the town hall attendees wore hats or held banners in support of former president Donald Trump. But they waited their turn to ask O'Rourke questions, including on guns.

“We wanted people who think differently to come hear him,” Lynch said. “I hope they took away a different image of him than what they see on Fox News.”

“Folks came out who supported us, folks came out who opposed us,” O’Rourke said after the town hall. “But everybody listened respectfully, politely, and asked great questions. And I feel like I have a better understanding of this community.”

“It’s nice to be with people who already support you and agree with you... I'm grateful for that,” he said. “But it's even better when there's someone who hasn't made up their mind yet, or even thinks that they don't like you.”

A crowd of about 850 people came late in the week to hear O’Rourke in Lubbock, where, sporting a Texas Tech hat, he discussed issues including gun safety, improving public schools and abortion. He acknowledged many counties in West Texas are still deeply red but that any votes he wins will move the needle.

'Do the big things in Texas'

In campaign stops this week, O'Rourke painted himself as the commonsense candidate who will improve daily life for Texans in all parts of the Lone Star State. Championing rural health care, bringing down property taxes and supporting teachers can win him votes, and probably won't lose him many.

"A lot of these issues... like inflation, the higher cost of living in Texas, are going to continue to be front and center in this campaign every single month," he said.

"It is time to turn the page and move forward with someone... who will focus on making sure that we do the big things in Texas," O'Rourke said in Midland. "Let the other side have the culture wars."

But he still has to contend with polarizing issues such as immigration and gun control. In events this week, he put forward red flag laws, repealing permitless carry and mandating universal background checks as gun safety steps most Texans can get behind.

"We may not agree on every aspect of this issue, because I've listened to you and our fellow Texans," O'Rourke said in Midland. "(These) are some guidelines or common ground that I think we can move forward."

O'Rourke's comments on assault rifle buy-back programs sparked controversy in his short-lived presidential campaign. At the time, he was outraged by a gunman using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill 23 people during their morning shopping trip to an El Paso Walmart.

His website in the gubernatorial campaign states O'Rourke's opposition to civilians owning AR-15s and AK-47s, but does not mention buy-back programs.

On immigration, O'Rourke has attacked Abbott's approach while also distancing himself from President Biden, including Biden's intent to end Title 42. On the stump, his line is that Texas needs a "legal, orderly system of immigration." His campaign page is light on details.

"If you want to come to this country, you want to join a family, you want to work at a job, you want to claim asylum or seek refuge, we want you to be able to do that," he said in Midland. "You have to do that legally, you have to do that in an orderly fashion."

But he also frequently references El Paso roots and the decision to raise his family there to assuage the fears of many Texans about the border. In an interview, he described how the Aug. 3, 2019 attack in El Paso showed immigration and gun violence are inter-related issues and criticized Abbott for stoking anti-immigrant hate.

"We've got to make sure that immigration can no longer be used as a scare tactic," he said.

A fighting chance

It's not the first time residents in towns and cities across Texas greet O'Rourke like a rock star. Supporters and critics alike will have flashbacks to 2018. But since then, his narrow defeat to Ted Cruz and his unsuccessful presidential run have added considerable baggage to his political resume.

When O'Rourke announced his candidacy in November 2021, the odds didn’t look good. A Texas Democrat had not won statewide office since 1994. The Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress was gridlocked on crucial parts of President Biden’s agenda. Abbott had amassed a formidable campaign war chest.

Early Quinnipiac polling put him 15 points behind his opponent. In Midland, O’Rourke quipped, “(That poll) was so bad, I just deleted it from my mindset.”

But O’Rourke feels now like he has a fighting chance. Current events have put his policy platform in the spotlight. Since the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, O’Rourke has been a strong voice for accountability and gun safety measures. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a month later, O’Rourke rallied with reproductive rights reporters.

O’Rourke is making headway. But can he keep the momentum up until November?

There’s a part in O’Rourke’s stump speech where he makes the mathematical case of why he can win: he rattles off the slim margin that separated him from Ted Cruz in 2018, the number of newly registered voters, the number of inactive voters. But setting the formula aside, O’Rourke is counting on winning over voters one town hall, one conversation, one door-knock at a time.

O'Rourke is betting that if he can reach enough people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, Texans will decide to vote Abbott out of office.

Reporting contributed by Alex Driggars of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Staff writer Martha Pskowski may be reached at mpskowski@elpasotimes.com and @psskow on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Beto O'Rourke makes his pitch to Texas voter on campaign tour