When O'Rourke ran for Senate, after getting non-stop text messages asking for money, I politely wrote the campaign and commented that if I was inclined to send money, spamming me with anti-gun messages was probably not the best way to do it and was going to alienate a lot of people who had no love for Ted Cruz. I got a quick reply from a staffer and wish I kept it. It was remarkably rude and dismissive. Abbot is not exactly popular with his base, but that's because a lot of Republican voters regard him as a "RINO." I know it's in-group vernacular to describe a duplicitous corporatist, but I don't like the term because it implies that it makes him some kind of conspicuous outlier. Beto's fundraising has supposedly set records but last I checked, more than half of his fundraising so far came from out of state. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in him beating Abbot in anything other than a skateboard race. The Texas GOP has been relatively quiet about O'rourke's out-of-state donors, which would probably resonate with the base, but as the legislature has never shown any interest in banning out-of-state political contributions when they have the chance to vote on it, it's probably better to avoid starting that conversation. I was really irritated that a party with the word "Democratic" in their name paid millions to their lawyers to scrub Green Party candidates off the ballot in 2020, but the Republicans won't be outdone, and are doing the same now to the Libertarians for 2022, which might actually be even more tone deaf than Beto's anti-gun messaging, especially when your ALLCAPS midterm voter outreach call to action is an appeal to grievances about alleged shady election processes. I'd be very surprised if Abbott loses. I think he'll outperform the polls, but I'd sooner write-in Kinky.
Pretty much. That single sentence sunk him state-wide in Texas forever IMO. Democrats have a few baked in characteristics that make authenticity really hard for them for some reason. They're very deferential to authority, they have almost too much respect for institutions/traditions/norms (weird to say that), and they also have a healthy amount of cowardice. I say 'healthy' because Democrats are always fighting an uphill battle it seems, trying to enact significant change, and so the room for error is perceived as extremely narrow. Spooking that suburban mom voter is a real concern. Too many F bombs and Karen isn't gonna vote for you. Etc. I had a similar experience with the Beto campaign vis-a-vis text message, lol. Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Beto brings in money. Whether it's Texas or elsewhere. And that's why I think he won't go away easily. I think if he keeps his nose clean he'll be a very compelling VP choice in the future, but a lot of stuff will have to break his way for him to ever mount a serious Presidential run again. The mob protects the mob, even rivals. Neither R or D has any interest in giving up the duopoly. It's a good racket they have going. The one thing that should give Beto fans hope is that in 2018 he outperformed the polls by about 4%. Which is pretty much 100% counter to the trend nationwide where Republicans have consistently outperformed their polls by 4%+. So, to that end, the rolling average for Beto now is -6%. I'm just pessimistic that this gap will close and not widen for him as we hit the most Democratic hostile election cycle since the tea party derped its way onto the scene.
That remains to be seen and depends upon how many more times the GOP steps on its own dick .... which it did in catastrophic fashion in overturning RvW. You wonder what these idiots will do next to screw up what looks like a sure thing.
My hope for him if he loses this race is that he gets put in charge of the state Democratic Party. He has a much better grasp on the state of things in Texas than most of party leadership and he's created a ton of infrastructure the party hasn't had here ever. In fact, I'd say in general the state party has done a bad job, Beto is the only state wide candidate to come close since Ann Richards and every other statewide candidate in 2018 ran behind him by at least a few points (the governor candidate by like 10 points). Plus he's obviously a fundraising machine
Unfortunately I agree He would need TREMENDOUS turnout in urban centers and suppressed turnout in Rural areas Beto probably needs to run for a US Rep - Goto Washington for a while Rocket River
