Move Over Abbott, Beto O'Rourke May Be Aiming for Texas Governor

The next Texas gubernatorial election is coming in 2022, and El Paso native Beto O'Rourke is thinking about throwing his hat into the race.

Beto O'Rourke, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 16th district, is ruminating over the possibility of running for Governor in Texas in 2022 according to an exclusive interview from our sister station KLAQ.

Beto made headlines in 2018 when he competed against Ted Cruz for his U.S. Senate seat. Unfortunately Beto was narrowly defeated by a margin of 3% points, but he did set a record number of votes for most votes ever cast for a Democrat in Texas history.

Governor Greg Abbott is already feeling the heat, and made the statement that Beto would not "sell well" at a news conference in Odessa. Governor Abbott and Beto have stark differences in their political positions that place them on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Unfortunately for Greg Abbott, a new wave of individuals are reaching the age to vote, and with them comes a new wave of beliefs that may align closer to Beto's positions on immigration, climate, guns, and social issues.

The Texas Senate race saw young voter turnout in early voting up 500%, and young Latino voters turned up like never before.

A study by Tufts "found that those with higher populations of Latinos were also significantly more likely to vote for O’Rourke. The effect was highest in the 50 Texas counties that fit in both the high-youth and high-Latino categories, where O’Rourke’s average vote share jumped to almost 44%, compared to just 17% in low-youth, low-Latino counties."

Some falsely believe that O'Rourke poses as a Latino to gain votes due to his nickname, "Beto", which is a nickname that stems from his birth name, Robert. The fact of the matter is that this is the furthest thing from the truth, as Beto has never claimed to be Latino.

Competitor Ted Cruz even ran a political ad featuring a country jingle stating: “If you are going to run in Texas, you can’t be a liberal man. I remember reading stories, liberal Robert wanted to fit in. So he changed his name to Beto and hid it with a grin."

The extremely humorous thing is that Ted Cruz does not use his birth name either, which is actually Rafael Edward Cruz. Classic pot and kettle.

Republicans in Texas are shaking in their boots after Beto stirred things up in 2018, and in 2022 he may just do it again. But hey, if you're not down for Beto maybe you'll consider Matthew McConaughey for Texas Governor?