EXCLUSIVE: WACO, Texas — Recent gains by Republicans among Spanish-speaking voters in South Texas, an electorate Democrats had long dominated, are doing Beto O’Rourke no favors as he tries to defeat two-term GOP Gov. Greg Abbott in November.
"I think Democrats are in large part to blame for some of our fortunes in states like Texas — taking for granted voters that have reliably voted for Democrats in the past and assuming they will do in the future, and literally phoning in the work," O’Rourke emphasized in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
"That’s not how we win elections," added O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, Texas, who came close to defeating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 before unsuccessfully running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Republicans made gains in Texas and across the country with Spanish-speaking voters in the 2020 elections, and flipped a blue congressional seat in the Rio Grande Valley in a special election in June. The GOP is heavily targeting two more Democratic-controlled House districts in south Texas in November’s midterm elections.
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O’Rourke said, "It's not so much what we say, it's what we do. Turning up repeatedly in Edinburg and Del Rio and Eagle Pass and McAllen, Brownsville, and not taking these communities for granted. And fighting for and earning every single vote that we need in order to win, and coming to these communities to talk about the things that are most important to them … that's how we're going to win their votes."
"You’ll see us show up in more communities and counties, not just more than Greg Abbott, probably more than any candidate that's ever traveled the roads of Texas," O’Rourke said. "Because we're going to make sure that we win by bringing in the people who are going to decide the outcome of this election. A lot of them are on the Texas-Mexico border, and I'm going to fight for them and win their votes."
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O’Rourke spoke with Fox News on Saturday night, after holding a town hall with voters in Waco, Texas. Despite the sweltering temperatures, nearly 600 people squeezed into the Da Shack farmers market and plant nursery to hear O’Rourke, ask questions and stand in line to shake hands and take a photo with the Democratic gubernatorial nominee during the nearly three-hour event.
It was O’Rourke’s third campaign stop of the day, part of his current seven-week barnstorming tour across the Lone Star State.
"It’s an extraordinary honor to be able to run this race on your behalf, an even greater honor to win this and actually serve you, to get this state moving in the right direction," O’Rourke said to cheers from the crowd. "Let’s go win this race. Let’s do it together."
O’Rourke’s on a mission to become the first Democrat to win a gubernatorial election in Texas in more than 30 years, and on the campaign trail and in his interview, O’Rourke repeatedly targeted Abbott over gun violence, abortion rights and the state’s 2021 power grid failure.
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"He's failed all of us — couldn't keep the lights on or the heat running in the energy capital of the world. People literally froze to death in Texas last winter, and we're now all paying higher utility bills as a result. He's the No. 1 driver of inflation in this state," O’Rourke said.
And O’Rourke charged that "10 weeks after Uvalde, after 19 kids were shot dead in their classroom, two teachers with them, [Abbott] hasn't lifted a finger, called a special session, changed anything to make it less likely that another gunman will come into another Texas classroom and do the same thing. And he's not focusing on the big things that we should be able to do together — improving teacher pay in Texas, so we can retain them in the classroom. Being there for our veterans, so they're not homeless on the streets of Texas. Expanding Medicaid, so more people can see a doctor and fewer kids are dying to diabetes."
"We can do the big things in Texas, but we need to change the person in that office to get that done," O’Rourke said.
Mark Miner, the Abbott campaign’s communications director, fired back, claiming that "the contrast in this race couldn’t be clearer. More Texans are working today than ever before. Gov. Abbott is running for re-election to secure the future of Texas through increased job creation and economic opportunity for all Texans; expand energy production to lower gas prices; cut property taxes; secure the border; And keep our communities safe by fully funding Texas law enforcement."
"In contrast, Beto O’ Rourke supports open borders, defunding the police, raising property taxes, and extreme energy policies that will increase gas prices and kill hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in Texas. Beto will take Texas in the wrong direction, and he’s using inflammatory rhetoric to hide from his out-of-touch policies," Miner said.
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O’Rourke became known on the presidential campaign trail for his "hell yes" promise to ban assault weapons — following a mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso. Those comments from 2019 seemed politically damaging as O’Rourke last year launched his bid for governor in gun-friendly Texas. But after the horrific May shooting in Uvalde, the issue of gun violence is once again center stage for O’Rourke.
At his town hall in Waco, O’Rourke heard from an elementary school teacher concerned over school shootings following the tragedy in Uvalde. Besides stressing school safety steps, like making sure doors are locked and improving perimeter fencing as well as stepped-up mental health care, O’Rourke said, "We got to make sure that not again can an 18-year-old go in and buy not one but two AR-15s and hundreds of rounds of ammunition perfectly legally, and then be able to take those into those schools and kill those kids. So, at a minimum, raising the minimum age of purchase from 18 to 21 for an AR-15 or an AK-47; implementing universal background checks, a Red Flag Law, safe stores laws."
"This is where most of us — Republicans, Democrats, gun owners and non-gun owners — can find common ground, and that's what I'm gonna focus on as governor," he added.
But asked if he’ll continue to push for the gun buyback program he proposed during his unsuccessful presidential bid, O’Rourke answered, "I’m going to focus on what we can get done, what's going to save the most lives."
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Abbott has garnered national headlines over the past year for his tough steps on border security, known as Operation Lone Star — policy changes made at the border that the governor has said was in response to the surge in illegal border crossings since the start of President Biden’s administration. Among the changes, Abbott’s state-funded border wall project and the deployment of thousands of state troopers and National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border. And Abbott’s transporting of undocumented migrants by bus from Texas to large progressive cities, such as New York and Washington, D.C., grabbed headlines and sparked controversy.
"Greg Abbott's all about stunts," O’Rourke said. "This partial wall that he's built, it's done nothing. Involuntarily activating 10,000 members of the Guard, costing us billions of dollars. Busing migrants to D.C. and New York, I guess it's a good publicity stunt. I don't know that it's made us any safer, more secure."
O’Rourke proposed "coming up with a Texas-based guest worker program. If you want to come here and pick onions, work in the cotton gin, work some job we're unable to fill otherwise, there should be a safe, legal, orderly path for you to be able to do that today. Today, there is not. If you want to join family, and you're in a 20-year line in order to do that. Let's look at lifting the per country caps that we have. If you want to claim asylum, we want to adjudicate that, and if you pass that adjudication you can stay."
"If you want to come here, you have to follow the law," O’Rourke said. "But I want to make sure that our laws follow our values, our interests and our needs right here in Texas. Those are solutions instead of stunts. Texas can lead the way in rewriting our immigration laws so that we are safer and living up to our values."
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O’Rourke came close to victory in 2018, losing to Cruz by less than three points. Asked how he can win this time around, he said that "we’re building on the base of 2018. Largest voter turnout in Texas since 1970. Young voter turnout up 500%."
An average of the most recent public opinion polls in the race — which were conducted in June and early July — indicated Abbott holding a mid-single digit lead over O’Rourke.
In a race between two prolific fundraisers, O’Rourke bested Abbott in the most recent report. The Democratic challenger hauled in a record $27.6 million during the late February-June fundraising period, topping Abbott by roughly $3 million. But the incumbent governor still holds a nearly two-to-one cash-on-hand advantage over his Democratic challenger.
"We are gaining ground when you look at the fact that we out-raised him by $3 million, half a million individual contributions, the greatest support coming from schoolteachers, 83,000 volunteers and folks showing up no matter what community we come to," O’Rourke said. "I feel really good about our chance to win this."
But seemingly doing O’Rourke no favors as he tries to upset Abbott is President Biden’s deeply underwater approval ratings.
Earlier this year O’Rourke knocked the Biden administration over its handling of the border crisis and has inferred in the past that he has little interest landing a campaign trail assist in Texas from the president.
Asked about the president’s poll numbers, O’Rourke said, "You know, what's interesting is that whatever the fortunes of Joe Biden or Donald Trump or anybody else outside of Texas, they don't seem to have any bearing on any of us inside of Texas."
While some Democrats have weighed in against the idea of the 79-year-old Biden running for re-election in 2024, O’Rourke stayed laser focused on his own race, telling Fox News when asked about whether Biden should seek a second term that "I'm focused on Texas in 2022."
Fox News' Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report
