Rep. Beto O’Rourke still faces an uphill battle in his race against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, but the El Paso Democrat is creating an energy that many in his party say they’ve never seen in Texas.
Written off as a long shot, O’Rourke is attracting new attention in his bid to unseat Cruz, thanks in part to stunning fundraising numbers. In the first 45 days of the year, O’Rourke raised $2.3 million to Cruz’s $800,000. O’Rourke boasts that he isn’t taking any PAC money, instead relying on $25 contributions.
O’Rourke’s fellow Texas Democrats have seen a shift since the new year, noticing unusual excitement in their districts.
“Beto seems to be building a lot of momentum and energy at a basic fundamental grassroots level,” said Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas. “I can’t remember seeing it before in Texas.”
The reason behind O’Rourke’s apparent rise, Democrats and nonpartisan pollsters agree, is a mixture of factors that have come to a head. President Trump’s approval numbers are shockingly low in Texas, below 40 percent. Cruz’s numbers are slightly better at 50 percent, according to a Morning Consult survey. The Texas Politics Project puts Cruz at 32 percent strong disapproval compared to 22 percent strong approval. And then there’s the curse of the first midterm into a new presidency.
Early voting numbers are setting off alarms for Republicans. The number of Democrats voting early in Texas’s 15 largest counties for the March 6 primary, jumped up 105 percent from 2014 midterms, according to the Cook Political Report. Early voting in the GOP primary increased by only 15 percent.
The enthusiasm gap is palpable on the ground, according to Veasey, who represents a district in Dallas and Tarrant counties. Republican business leaders in Dallas and Fort Worth have told Veasey they don’t know what party they belong to anymore, “but they don’t call themselves Republicans.”
Pollsters have taken notice. CNN moved the Senate race from a “solid Republican” rating to “likely Republican.” Cook Political Report did the same after its Senate expert, Jennifer Duffy, met O’Rourke.
“Texas is still hard for Democrats, but I think that O’Rourke is generating some interest and some energy that I haven’t seen from a Democratic Senate candidate in a long time,” Duffy said.
Part of the reason O’Rourke is surging, Duffy said, is because “Cruz alienated a lot of establishment Republicans who might be looking for another choice.”
Though Duffy is impressed by O’Rourke’s fundraising, a clear sign of momentum, there are three things she’s looking for Tuesday night as numbers roll in.
First, she’ll be keeping an eye on both Republican and Democratic turnout numbers. Second, is Cruz’s percentage and whether his opponents in the GOP primary “take a bite out his support.” Finally, Duffy is waiting to see the size of O’Rourke’s victory, which will reveal if his retail style of campaigning is effective.
The general will provide an entirely different host of challenges for O’Rourke. Though he’s outraised Cruz in recent months, Cruz has more cash in his war chest — $6 million to O’Rourke’s $4.9 million.
That doesn’t count the super PAC money Republicans will spend independently of Cruz to boost him if the race looks close.
“You can’t raise too much money in Texas, it’s not possible,” Duffy said. “But [O’Rourke] is just outshining expectations.”
O’Rourke’s visited 226 of the state’s 254 counties, including Republican strongholds. Two weeks ago he campaigned in Tarrant County, telling voters there that they are key to his prospects. By visiting counties Democrats haven’t been to in decades, O’Rourke could soften the blow a Democrat would typically incur in rural areas.
“He is just moving everywhere and people really like him,” said Rep. Filemon Vela, a Democrat who represents a district encompassing Brownsville that runs along the easternmost point of the U.S.-Mexico border. “There’s no question there’s a sense of energy about his race that has developed over the last few months that we have not seen before and may not have anticipated.”
Vela isn’t blind. He knows O’Rourke is an underdog. But after O’Rourke visited his district earlier this year, Vela witnessed a new passion from his constituents for a Democrat running statewide.
One question Vela raised is how the renewed gun control debate — which appears to have staying power this time around — will impact the race.
“If that demographic of voter in suburban countries that have traditionally voted very heavily Republican are at the point, given what happened in Florida, that they’re ready to break with hardliners on gun control like Cruz, that’s a factor that could potentially weigh in Beto’s favor,” Vela said, pointing to the suburbs of Houston and Dallas.
O’Rourke doesn’t shy away from specifics on gun control, but that could backfire in Texas.
“We talk about it at every town hall,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I just tell people how I feel — universal background checks, we shouldn’t be selling AR-15s, the [Centers for Disease Control] should be able to study gun violence.”
He rarely mentions Cruz or Trump by name on the stump, and he thinks keeping it positive is helping. “I’m seeing more people come out and I’m seeing greater intensity and enthusiasm,” he said.
Democrats thought they had a chance at statewide office in Texas four years ago. But there are significant differences between O’Rourke and Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator who rocketed to fame after her filibuster of a bill instituting new abortion regulations.
Davis sent mixed messages to voters who had difficulty figuring out if she was a progressive or centrist. Sean Theriault, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, said Davis ran too far to the left in a state were there just aren’t enough liberals to carry you to victory.
Davis hit then-Attorney General Greg Abbottt repeatedly on his anti-abortion rights stance.
“Her strategy was always about getting liberals to turn out,” said Theriault.
O’Rourke on the other hand, Theriault said, is “trying to appeal to those middle of the road, Chamber of Commerce folks, those who’ve never totally been in love with Ted Cruz to begin with.”
The 2016 election “jolted” Republicans and Democrats in Texas, he said, creating a pathway for O’Rourke that might not have existed otherwise.
Theriault pointed to the House races in suburban GOP-held districts where the incumbent Republicans “are running scared.” Fourteen Democrats are running across two primaries to replace Republican Reps. Pete Sessions and John Culberson.
“The time is ripe, but that in no way suggests the path to Beto winning is anything more than glimmer,” Theriault said. “If Trump’s numbers were higher we wouldn’t be talking about this race.”
