“They want us to take on these really urgent priorities”, he said, “not just this smallness and pettiness that dominates the national conversation today”.
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Cruz won 85 percent of the vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday.
O’Rourke, a three-term congressman who had the backing of the national party, won about 62 percent of the Democratic primary vote Tuesday night, fending off a challenge from Sema Hernandez, who won almost 24 percent, and Edward Kimbrough with 14.4 percent.
“He was an unknown, and he is well-known now”, said JoAnn Fleming, a Texas activist who headed tea party organizing for Cruz’s presidential campaign.
That year, Democrats took back both the US House and Senate, but Republicans easily won the major statewide races in Texas, including the governorship and a US Senate election. I don’t doubt that, especially by Texas standards, O’Rourke is quite liberal and, until credible evidence to the contrary emerges, must be viewed as a longshot at best. “I think we have a long way to go until November”.
“We’ve already outraised Cruz multiple times with grass-roots donations alone, without taking a dollar from PACs”, O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke has not commented on Cruz’s choice of name.
Texas voted on Tuesday, and the state is still very much red. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso.
And while Texas is usually firmly Republican, O’Rouke’s nomination has highlighted fears that Democrats are turning out in increasing numbers.
O’Rourke’s low number says more about the party than it does O’Rourke, but it’s still not a particularly great sign. He attributed Tuesday night’s results to his campaign’s whole-state approach. Within that primary turnout, the Republicans had an advantage over the Democrats, but it was significantly less pronounced than in 2018.
Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America, said Democrats can win if they nominate candidates cut from the same cloth as Mrs. Moser and Ms. Jones.
Cruz agreed, saying he was named after his father, also Rafael Cruz, a Cuban immigrant. CNN host Alisyn Camerota asked O’Rourke in an interview how he can win in Texas, which she said has a “gun culture”, with that rating.
But once ordinary voters begin to tune in, he said the campaign will enter a new and more combative phase.
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O’Rourke has visited about 230 of the state’s 254 counties since March, hosting crowded speaking engagements at big theaters and smaller conversation sessions at coffee bars and donut shops.
