When Democrat Beto O’Rourke pulled up to the Kay Theater in Rockdale for a campaign stop on a recent Saturday afternoon, he was greeted by a group waving posters.
“Go home, Beto!” one shouted, raising a Gov. Greg Abbott placard above his head. “We don’t want you here.”
The man stood with a dozen others who had turned out to protest O’Rourke’s town hall-style appearance in their small town, where 76% of voters supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. They stood near trucks with Trump flags blasting music by Tom MacDonald and other right-wing rappers, shouting at every person arriving for the Aug. 6 event.
But inside was a different story. The small theater, where movies are typically shown to crowds of 20 people on a busy night, was packed to the rafters with more than 350 supporters waving Beto signs and sporting Beto T-shirts.
The crowd erupted into cheers and chants of “Beto! Beto! Beto!”
“Rockdale, Milam County — how are we doing tonight?” he said, taking the mic.
More:Beto O’Rourke hosts town hall meetings across Central Texas
With three months until Election Day, O’Rourke is on the road again and looking to make inroads with voters in rural pockets of the state that trend conservative in his bid to unseat the two-term Republican governor. He’s on a 49-day drive, covering multiple cities a day, on a campaign swing that recently brought him to a collection of towns around Central Texas, including Bastrop, Brenham, Rockdale, Madisonville, Marlin and Waco.
At each stop, O’Rourke presides over town hall-style meetings, giving him a chance to talk with voters one-on-one and cull video clips for social media of particularly powerful exchanges — often of first-time voters or self-proclaimed Republicans who take to the mic with questions.
Questions come after O’Rourke delivers a version of his stump speech, which is tailored to the crowd and is often built on conversations he’s had with voters at recent campaign stops. But it always touches on abortion access, the state’s power grid and improving wages for teachers, among other issues. Then, he turns the mic over to the crowd.
“The only hope I have of delivering for Rockdale once we win this election is to make sure I’ve heard from the people of Rockdale, understand your expectations and know what the challenges and opportunities are,” O’Rourke said to the crowd at the Kay Theater. “That means it is OK if you’re here and you do not support me and you’re not going to vote for me. You’re just as much a Texan as anyone else, just as important to me as anyone else.”
Connecting with rural voters
It’s a similar scene to countless campaign stops in 2018, when O’Rourke was on a quest to visit each of the state’s 254 counties in his bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
At the time, the effort was a major deviation from standard campaign strategies implemented by most Texas Democrats who focus on boosting turnout in reliably blue city centers, and many political strategists privately (and sometimes publicly) suggested O’Rourke waswasting his time.
Enthusiasm for his campaign had skyrocketed, translating into packed venues at even the smallest Republican towns — but that turnout did not translate into votes from rural areas come November, rendering his strategy less than successful. Although O’Rourke came closer to winning statewide office than any Democrat in a generation, that support came largely from major metro areas.
But O’Rourke doesn’t see it that way. When he talks about 2018, he points to the slim 2.6% final margin between him and Cruz and the 53% voter turnout statewide, which was more than in any midterm election in recent history.
And now, four years later, O’Rourke said he still believes that the best way to run a campaign is to be on the road, prioritizing time spent with voters who have been forgotten by the state’s prevailing political machines.
“We’re not doing it as an exercise in endurance, we’re doing this because I think it literally is the only way that you can win, and it’s certainly the right way to run,” O’Rourke said in an interview after his campaign stop in Marlin. “If you truly believe that everyone is important and everyone is deserving of your time and attention, and if there are votes to be gained everywhere, you’ve got to show up.”
He described it as a ripple effect. If he can win over the crowds at town hall events and give attendees the opportunity to voice concerns and ask questions about his policy positions, word will spread from there as those people tell their friends and family about the exchange. At least in theory.
But being on the road with voters is only half the calculus for O’Rourke. The other half is about capitalizing on what he describes as “the unprecedented incompetence and failure of Greg Abbott.”
Polls show a tightening contest between O’Rourke and Abbott and a clear discontent among voters over several recent developments in the state, including the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that killed 19 children and two teachers and the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending federal constitutional protections for abortion, clearing the way for a complete ban on abortion in Texas.
Campaign strategists for Abbott told reporters in July that, although some voters seem energized around those issues, it’s a temporary angst that will soon fade and make way for economic issues like inflation that will always be front-of-mind for people.
Temporary or not, this discontent among voters has translated into bigger crowds at campaign events and more small-dollar donations to O’Rourke’s campaign, which during the latest fundraising period outraised Abbott by more than $2 million and set a new record for the largest haul reported by a candidate for statewide office during a single reporting period.
“Ted Cruz was one of 535 members of the United States Congress,” O’Rourke said. “There’s only one chief executive of the state, and he owns everything that has gone wrong in Texas, and we’re going to make sure every voter knows that by Election Day.”
Gun control remains a sensitive subject
Abbott and his campaign team maintain that O’Rourke’s vision does not reflect the values of the majority of Texans, particularly when it comes to guns. Much of the Abbott campaign’s messaging on his opponent has been devoted to reminding voters of remarks O’Rourke made during his short-lived presidential campaign, when he vowed to take away AR-15 rifles during a debate.
O’Rourke’s position on guns has become more nuanced in the intervening years — instead of an outright prohibition, he now favors raising the minimum age to purchase assault rifles from 18 to 21, adopting red flag laws and establishing universal background checks — but his passion on the issue has not dwindled.
After the school shooting in Uvalde, Abbott and other state officials were holding a news conference in the town, during which the governor said tougher gun laws were not needed in the wake of the massacre. In a risky maneuver that earned him both praise and denunciations, O’Rourke charged the stage, pointing to Abbott and yelling: “This is on you.”
O’Rourke talks about the shooting at every campaign event, if not during his prepared remarks then during the question and answer portion of the town hall.
In Rockdale, one of the protesters made her way inside and asked O’Rourke a question during his event: “Are you coming for our guns? You said it over and over again.”
After quieting boos from some in the crowd, O’Rourke said he supports common sense gun measures that keep firearms out of the hands of “people who intend to do harm to us or to our kids or to our communities, while still protecting your rights to keep and bear arms.”
“Is the Second Amendment an absolute, or are there some restrictions on it? Is any constitutionally protected right absolute?” O’Rourke said. “Can you walk around with a bazooka or a grenade launcher or roll down the street with a tank? No, because the Second Amendment is not absolute.”
The woman nodded along as O’Rourke answered, sometimes saying “I agree with that” and finally thanking him for his response. But not all exchanges have been so civil.
During an appearance in Mineral Wells on Thursday, someone in the crowd laughed aloud as O’Rourke discussed the shooting in Uvalde. Multiple videos of the exchange show O’Rourke turning to point at the person who laughed, saying: “It may be funny to you motherf—–, but it’s not funny to me.”
O’Rourke later referred to the exchange on his Facebook page, writing: “Nothing more serious to me than getting justice for the families in Uvalde and stopping this from ever happening again.”
While his intensity on the issue has earned him support from many within his party, it has also isolated some would-be supporters — including John Smith, a 45-year-old in the construction business who lives in Limestone County, just east of Waco.
Smith has always considered himself to be a conservative independent, given his staunch support of the Second Amendment and his experiences as a property owner in Del Rio, near the Texas-Mexico border.
But lately, he said, he’s “really fed up” with Abbott and other statewide Republican officials, adding that he is undecided in the race at the top of the ticket.
“I don’t like Abbott,” Smith said, explaining that his son is gay and he has been angered by positions the governor has taken on LGBTQ rights, specifically his call for state officials to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming medical care to their transgender adolescents. “It’s your life and not mine to tell you what to do, and I think that’s our decision as grown adults that follow the laws — not Greg Abbott’s.”
Smith joined his wife Anna and two of his children at O’Rourke’s town hall in Marlin, hoping to hear something from the gubernatorial hopeful that would sway his vote one way or the other. His main concern is O’Rourke’s position on guns, or at least his past position on the issue.
“I’m well against what he wants to do to our Second Amendment rights,” he said. “I agree with a lot of the red flag laws, but saying that I, as a law abiding citizen, shouldn’t be able to have any guns or weapons? No.”
Smith asked O’Rourke about his position on guns after the event, and the Democrat explained his three-pronged position about raising the age, adopting red flag laws and requiring background checks prior to allpurchases.
“I agree with that,” Smith said. “But I’m still on the fence. I’ll be paying attention.”
‘Texas we can do Beto’
For all of his detractors and skeptics, it’s clear O’Rourke’s message is resonating with his supporters, many of whom have dared to express cautious optimism, if not a full-blown belief, that this election is going to be different.
Luke Warford, the Democratic nominee for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, opened for O’Rourke during his swing through Central Texas and repeatedly told attendees that his party has the “best statewide ticket we’ve had in decades” and enough momentum to be victorious in the fall.
Supporters often take to the mic at town halls simply to thank O’Rourke for running and to tell him they believe he will be the next governor.
Much of the optimism is fueled by the recent election in Kansas, where voters soundly rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment stating that there is no legal right to abortion.
“Initially, I didn’t hold that much hope for the governor, because Texas is such a red state,” said Steve Chamberlain, who serves as the party chair in Bastrop County. “But after what happened in Kansas, the tide may be turning.”
Alfonso Vasquez, a high school history teacher from Bastrop, agreed, adding that Abbott’s push to the right in recent years has energized Democrats in his area.
“The thing with Abbott is that he’s gone way right now,” Vasquez said. “It used to be that you could live with Texas Republicans, but now he’s trying to be more MAGA (Make America Great Again), and I’m not down with that.”
Terry Baker, a retired school teacher who now lives outside of Bryan, said his frustration with Abbott compelled him to drive to O’Rourke’s town hall in Marlin.
“I’m getting old and grumpy, so I like to hear him say negative things about the governor,” said Baker, 73. “There’s a lot of pent-up frustration and anger, and I think it might show up in the governor’s race.”
Before O’Rourke took the stage at his Bastrop event, Austin folksinger Steve Brooks performed an original song written in the Democrat’s honor:
“If you believe that voting should be easy, if you believe that polluting should be hard, if you don’t want to go back to old Jim Crow, if you’ve had enough of freezing in the dark, Texas we can do Beto, there’s no day like today.
“Texas we can do Beto, we can find a Beto way!”
Corpus Christi Caller Times reporter John Moritz contributed to this report.
