Polls that have Texas governor Greg Abbott ahead of challenger Beto O’Rourke aren’t exactly shocking news at this point. But they’re worth noting every now and then for two reasons. First, these polls refute the narrative that took root this spring, particularly after the Uvalde shooting, when Democrats and their allies convinced themselves one more time that, “this time, it’s different. Texas has changed! A Democrat has a real shot at winning!” It was as if Democrats believed that because they wanted that to be true so badly, they could will that political dynamic into existence.
The second is that the consistent Abbott lead demonstrates how much the traits of Beto O’Rourke, the hottest Democratic Party star of 2018, are starting to feel like a tired schtick.
Texas Monthly offers another big, detailed, colorful and well-reported profile piece, with a lot of the familiar notes from all of those profiles of O’Rourke in 2018 – his use of profanity, standing on tables, the huge fundraising, his musical tastes. “He’s still driving around Texas in a Toyota Tundra, still drawing crowds in the reddest parts of the state, still guerrilla marketing himself in sprawling selfie lines.” And at certain points, correspondent Dan Solomon sounds like he feels a bit of that old magic from four years ago:
O’Rourke does this because he finds purpose in it… Maybe what he told Vanity Fair three years ago wasn’t a regrettable boast, but something that’s at the core of who he is. Maybe he really was born to be in it. And maybe he foresaw some possibilities for Democrats in 2022 that others, at least until recently, did not.
But Solomon acknowledges that in a lot of ways, this is the same old stuff that came respectably close but fell short four years ago. “The novelty of his campaigning has long since worn off—O’Rourke has stood on tables to speak to crowds from Iowa to Virginia, and he’s stumped in every county in Texas—and a third loss would be humiliating.”
In the closing paragraphs, you can almost feel the clash between the desire to believe in this idealistic image of O’Rourke, against the cold hard reality of Texas politics – this is still a heavily Republican state, and this year is a much worse political environment for Democrats than 2018.
If he beats Abbott, O’Rourke said, Republican lawmakers “are going to be paying attention.” He believes the jolt of his victory will make them receptive to modest reforms on abortion rights, gun control, and immigration. “I think there’s a lot of common ground there,” he said, “and I will make the most of every single inch of it.” He may be right about the existence of common ground. But it’s equally possible that resisting cooperation with Governor O’Rourke would become a requirement for Republican legislators who wanted to survive primary challenges from the right in 2024 and beyond.
Even if we can’t predict what the repercussions would be, O’Rourke is certainly correct that a victory in November would send shock waves through Texas politics. That’s partly because it seems so unlikely. Polling in the governor’s race has narrowed—but from a 15-point Abbott lead last December to 7.2 points on average by the end of August. O’Rourke’s betting odds have improved, too; instead of being a ten-to-one long shot, he’s closer to five-to-one now. That’s a fine trend line if your goal is to score a moral victory. But moral victories don’t change who’s in charge.
O’Rourke learned that lesson the hard way in 2018. But as the 2022 campaign reaches its final months, the candidate is convinced that what he’s seen on the road speaks to something happening in the electorate that the pollsters and oddsmakers haven’t picked up on yet. “As our honorary fellow Texan Joe Strummer would say, the future is unwritten,” O’Rourke told me after his event in Fredericksburg, name-dropping the punk-rock icon who fronted the Clash and whose music can be heard from the speakers at every rally. “We get to decide this at the ballot box.”
Yes… and when the votes are counted, Abbott’s likely to win by five to 11 percentage points, a bit wider margin than Ted Cruz’s three-point win over Beto in the 2018 Senate race.