Beto O'Rourke running for Texas governor

Democrat Beto O'Rourke ended months of speculations on Monday by announcing that he is running for governor of Texas. 

O'Rourke, who announced his decision on his YouTube channel, opened his campaign by talking about the failure of the Texas power grid in the winter storm early this year.

In that event, close to 70 percent of customers served by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas lost power. More than 110 people died as a result of the power outage, making it the costliest disaster in Texas history.

O'Rourke said the power grid failure is "the symptom of a larger problem we have in Texas right now. Those in positions of public trust have stopped listening to, serving and paying attention to and trusting people of Texas." 

He criticized the current government as not focusing on things like a functioning electricity grid, creating the best jobs, having world-class schools, expanding Medicaid and legalizing marijuana. 

"Instead, they are focusing on the extreme policies around abortion or permitless carry even in our schools," he said. 

O'Rourke, 49, had served as US representative from El Paso for a few years since 2013. He ran for the US Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018. He lost by a 2.6 percent margin but helped the Democrats win many other positions within the state. He entered the 2020 presidential race in 2019 but later ended his campaign and endorsed Joe Biden.

"Together, we can push past the small and divisive politics that we see in Texas today — and get back to the big, bold vision that used to define Texas. A Texas big enough for all of us," O'Rourke tweeted.  

A series of campaign kickoff events have been scheduled starting Tuesday in major cities including San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Corpus Christi.

Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who turned 64 this month, responded to O'Rourke's announcement by posting an animation of O'Rourke's face morphing into Biden's face, stating he's "wrong for Texas". 

Even though Abbott's popularity has sunk to its lowest point recently mostly due to his push for a staunchly conservative agenda such as restrictive abortion and permitless gun carry, ban orders on mask and vaccine mandates, he has a comfortable lead over O'Rourke – 46 percent versus 37 percent, according to an October poll of registered voters conducted by the Texas Tribune and the University of Texas. 

However, another October poll of registered voters by Rice University showed that Abbott and O'Rourke are neck-in-neck: 43 percent versus 42 percent, with 12 percent undecided.

"What this shows us is that Greg Abbott's support among general election voters has diminished. And while he's still considered to be the favorite to win, we can't say at the present time that he's a lock to beat Beto O'Rourke in November of 2022," Mark Jones, political science professor at Rice University told a local CBS-TV affiliate. 

Jones conducted the poll in collaboration with the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation. It also took a deep look at Hispanic voters, showing that O'Rourke's Hispanic support was 49 percent, with 31 percent for Abbott.

Negative comments about O'Rourke have focused on his stance on guns. He proposed requiring buybacks of assault weapons during his presidential campaign. He also proclaimed during a presidential debate in 2019 that, "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47."

Jon Taylor, professor and department chair at the political science and geography department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that it doesn't help O'Rourke that Biden has low approval numbers nationally, and even worse in Texas. However, even by the Texas Tribune/UT poll numbers, O'Rourke is "well within striking range".

"O'Rourke is well behind Abbott on money and may be a little too liberal for the Texas electorate. But he also has high name recognition, will energize Democratic voters and might be in the right place at the right time: Abbott's approval numbers are well underwater, which is a big warning sign for an incumbent — particularly for one running for a third term as governor," Taylor said.

"If O'Rourke were to win, his victory would be the first by a Democrat since 1990. It would have resonance and mark a fundamental shift not only in Texas politics but nationally," he said, adding that if such a shift occurs, "the GOP could be in the political wilderness for a generation".