Beto O’Rourke is raking in the money hand over fist. The Texas Democrat raised $6.7 million in his effort to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, making some wonder seriously whether that state could turn blue for the first time since Bill Clinton was president.
But cash isn’t the problem for O’Rourke. It’s people. Because while everything really is bigger in Texas, the Democrat electorate is actually smaller.
For O’Rourke to win, two things need to happen simultaneously. First, he needs to outperform both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Together those two earned 1.4 million votes in the Texas Democratic primary in 2016. Second, Cruz needs to trip over his own boots and face plant. That Cruz collapse seems unlikely. He beat Trump in that year’s Republican primary with 1.2 million votes.
For all his electioneering and fundraising gifts, O’Rourke cannot create voters out of money. The GOP electorate marshaled an army of 2.8 million compared to 1.4 million Democrats during the last general election. O’Rourke has shown the energy of an itinerant preacher, visiting all 254 of the state’s counties already, and the values of a progressive savior, rejecting funds from super PACs from the beginning. It’s the kind of ability that makes liberal analysts blindly believe. It’s also the kind of work experience that would make him competitive for a job with the DNC come Nov. 7.
O’Rourke’s enthusiasm probably can’t reach the levels needed to knock over Cruz. The primary results bear this out: O’Rourke defeated two serious challengers with 641,324 votes to get the nomination; Cruz ran essentially uncontested and won with 1.3 million votes. Any voter who cares enough to cast a ballot in a basically meaningless Republican primary will be back when it matters in November, and they won’t be alone. In the last midterm statewide race, a much-hyped Democrat got only 1.8 million votes in all.
Moreover, the very story about O’Rourke momentum will feed the fears of hardcore Cruz supporters, pushing them to the polls during the general. The burden is on O’Rourke to show that his money can change that set of facts.
