Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke said on Friday that he doesn’t have any plans to run for Texas governor at the moment but isn’t willing to rule out the possibility.
“I’ve got no plans to run, and I’m very focused on the things that I’m lucky enough to do right now — organizing, registering voters, and teaching,” he said in an interview. “I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing now.”
The 48-year-old Democrat was speaking to the Dallas Morning News and NBC 5 for their joint Lone Star Politics Podcast.
TEXAS COVID-19 CASE NUMBERS HIT RECORD LOW THREE WEEKS AFTER RESTRICTIONS LIFTED
O’Rourke later walked back his comments.
“What I said today is what I’ve been saying for months: I’m not currently considering a run for office,” he said in a statement. “I’m focused on what I’m doing now (teaching and organizing). Nothing’s changed and nothing I said would preclude me from considering a run in the future.”
In 2018, O’Rourke ran for Senate in Texas and lost to Sen. Ted Cruz. He then entered the race to become the 2020 Democratic nominee for president but dropped out in November 2019.
On the podcast, O’Rourke suggested Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo would be strong candidates to take on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for reelection in 2022.
“How about a Democrat like Clay Jenkins, the county judge of Dallas County, who has, in contrast, absolutely distinguished himself in the professionalism with which he’s met both the pandemic and the rollout of the vaccine?” O’Rourke said. “How about somebody like Lina Hidalgo, the county judge in Harris County, who has disregarded the polls and the conventional wisdom and instead followed the best public health advice and science and guidance from medical practitioners?”
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Democrats have been critical of Abbott’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. On March 2, the governor announced that the state would be 100% open and that its mask mandate was lifted. Case counts in the state have steadily decreased since then, with only a slight uptick toward the end of the month, according to data collected by the New York Times.
