2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke vowed to beat President Trump in his home state of Texas, even after failing to defeat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterm elections.
The former Texas representative told a panel of MSNBC analysts on Wednesday, “We can put Texas in play.”
“We can win Texas,” O’Rourke boasted. “I’m going to make sure that the rest of America hears that story because the No. 1 priority for voters right now is defeating Donald Trump in 2020.”
Texas is the second most populous state in the country and carries 38 electoral votes in the presidential election. However, it has also voted red in every presidential election since 1980, making it a long-shot goal for Democrats to collect, but doing so would almost certainly guarantee a Democratic president in the White House.
Some believe changing demographics within Texas will continue to narrow the chances of a decisive Republican victory there.
According to the Texas Tribune, ten congressional districts were rated as competitive in 2018, up from just one in 2016. The number of competitive Senate districts also jumped to five in 2018 from three in 2016.
In his interview with MSNBC, O’Rourke also referred to a UT Tyler-Texas Opinion Survey that showed him with an 11 percentage point lead over Trump among registered Texas voters in a head-to-head matchup — the largest advantage in the state among Democratic candidates. The July 30 poll also revealed O’Rourke leading the primary field with 27% support among Texas Democrats followed by former vice president and 2020 front-runner Joe Biden amassing 24% of support.
“With Texas, we defeat Donald Trump, but we also change the electoral landscape of the United States forever after,” O’Rourke told MSNBC after Tuesday night’s debate. “This is how we begin to build the majority we need to pass this really ambitious legislation on healthcare or climate or immigration.”
Cruz narrowly defeated O’Rourke in a high-profile Senate bid in last November’s midterm elections. While garnering national media attention and out-raising Cruz by nearly $30 million, O’Rourke still lost by 2.6 percentage points in a race that every poll predicted he would lose.
Since declaring his candidacy for president in March, O’Rourke has failed to gain traction, and most polls show him idling in the single digits.
