Inside Beto O’Rourke’s Texas abortion gamble

Democrats last held the governor’s mansion 30 years ago but the former congressman claims the abortion ban is uniting Texans in way he has never seen, writes Andrew Buncombe

The Democrat hopeful claims he is going to defeat Gregg Abbott (Getty)

Beto O’Rourke, looking to become Texas’s first Democratic governor for 30 years, claims opposition to a near-total abortion ban is uniting voters in a way he has never seen in his life.

Ahead of November’s midterm elections, where he is taking on Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, O’Rourke’s campaign is spending millions of dollars on television adverts claiming the vote is a “referendum” on abortion access.

“On this issue, one of the most, if not the most important issues to be decided in this election, Greg Abbott has the full support of 11 per cent of our fellow Texans,” he recently said on MSNBC.

“This total abortion ban, without exception for rape or incest, one of the most extreme laws in this country, is not a reflection of who we are in the state of Texas. It may be a reflection of Greg Abbott’s political priorities.”

He added: “But this is uniting Texans, Republicans, Democrats, independents, unlike any issue I’ve seen before, and I’ve lived here my entire life.”

To become the first Democrat since Ann Richards, who lost her bid for re-election to George W Bush in 1994, to occupy the governor’s mansion would represent an astonishing success for Democrats.

A series of polls put Abbott leading the Democrat by six or seven points at least, with an average collated by Real Clear Politics scoring it 48.4 to Abbott and 41.6 to O’Rourke.

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Yet, unlike on issues such as gun control, where the Democrat has often been frustrated in his attempts to bring people together despite mass shooting events such as the attack on a primary school in Uvalde and the 2019 attack at a Walmart in El Paso, he believes the Supreme Court’s scrapping of Roe v Wade, combined with a Texas law that bans abortions almost without exceptions, will bring voters out.

Speaking to Fox 4 News in Dallas, O’Rourke was asked whether he thought women will be his swing voters.

“This is essentially a referendum on whether we’re going to go back literally half a century, or whether the state is going to move forward,” he said. “There will be Republicans, there’ll be independents, there’ll be Democrats, like there’ll be folks who’ve never voted in an election before because they didn’t think it mattered and they know that in this one, literally, their lives are on the line. They’ll be coming out.”

O’Rourke’s release of several adverts attacking Abbott, 64, for signing one of the nation’s most restrictive bills into law, coincided with that legislation coming into effect this week. Under that bill, there are no exceptions made for cases even of rape or incest, only if a doctor believes the life of a mother is in danger.

Members of the public can report people they think are breaking the law and committing a felony, and doctors who perform abortions now face up to life in prison and a $100,000 fine. Texas is the largest state to ban abortion and is one of the worst half-dozen states for maternal mortality.

There seems little doubt that this could cement support for 49-year-old O’Rourke; the question is how much, and whether it will drive enough voters to beat Mr Abbott.

“There’s no question that it helps Beto. It’s also a fair question of will it help him enough,” Matt Angle, a longtime Texas strategist and founder of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee (PAC), tells The Independent.

“But there’s no question that the Dobbs [v Jackson] decision really goes beyond the typical debate on abortion that we’ve had for 30 years. It’s now fundamental rights and values as an American citizen, and whether or not women have basic access to make health care decisions.”

He adds: “And that’s being felt at a visceral level in a way that I haven’t seen before.”

Renée Cross is a political scientist and senior executive director of Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. She has been conducting polling in Texas, looking at not simply which candidates have the most support but the issues most important to potential voters.

A report published in July found Abbott leading O’Rourke by 5 points, with 5 per cent undecided and 2 per cent planning to vote for the Libertarian Party’s Mark Tippetts. The most important issues were inflation, crime and public safety, economic growth, government spending and taxes, and health care costs. Abortion ranked 10th on the list of 15, but it was a more important issue to those likely to vote for O’Rourke.

Another study by the  University of Houston found that 50 per cent of Texans oppose this new ban on abortion in Texas, with 46 per cent supporting it. But the same polls show a vast majority support exceptions in the case of rape and incest. Only 13 per cent of voters said there should no exceptions for rape, and 11 per cent supported no exceptions for incest.

Cross says that polling was carried out before the total ban came into effect and she believes that the numbers have shifted.

“I suspect, particularly with all the media coverage, as well the various demonstrations and Beto’s in-person town halls and so forth,  those numbers might have moved a little to favour Beto’s position,” she says, adding that suburban women moved towards Biden from Trump in 2020.

What is new about abortion this time, she adds is that a “right has been taken away”.

“So many young people, but women in particular, have never lived in a time when abortion was illegal,” she adds.

Will that turn out to be big enough? “Well, we’ll have to see on 8 November.”

Governor Gregg Abbot signed a near total abortion ban into Texas law in 2021 (AFP/Getty)

The Texas-based group Annie’s List, which recruits, trains, and otherwise supports progressive Democratic women, says it has also seen that more women are paying attention to abortion, since the Supreme Court on 24 June overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that had for 50 years ensured women across America had a legal right to access safe and legal abortion.

“We’ve seen evidence post-Roe falling that women are engaged and paying extra attention to abortion rights as an issue,” Ana Ramón, executive director of Annie’s List, says in a statement.

“Given that Texas Republicans have been the catalyst for so many of the anti-abortion policy movements we’ve seen across the US, it’s no surprise that Beto’s campaign is out front on reinstating abortion access and protecting our fundamental right to abortion care.”

As part of his outreach on this issue, O’Rourke has the help of Cecile Richards, a former president of Planned Parenthood, and the daughter of Ann Richards, Texas’s last Democratic governor. The last Democrat running for president to win the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976, while in 2020 Donald Trump took Texas by a 52-46 margin over Joe Biden.

“On Thursday, the most extreme abortion ban in America went into effect across Texas,” Richards said in an email to potential supporters.

“Greg Abbott’s dangerous law bans abortions beginning at conception. It has no exception for rape or incest. And a full 82 per cent of Texans oppose it.”

She added: “But it’s now the law of the land in Texas – because of Greg Abbott. Not only did Abbott choose to enact this extreme abortion ban, he is proud of what he’s done to attack the freedom, health, and lives of Texas women.”

In addition to realising that for all its liberal pockets, such as Austin, Texas remains a solidly red state and while O’Rourke can hope for support from women voters in the suburbs of cities such as Houston, there are lots of people planning to vote for Abbott.

While Abbott has kept something of a lower profile, he has not shied away from his support for the ban.

“No freedom is more precious than life itself. Starting today, every unborn child with a heartbeat will be protected from the ravages of abortion,” he tweeted last year. “Texas will always defend the right to life.”

Confronted by a reporter last year about the bill’s lack of exceptions for rape and incest, he said: “Rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.”

Polls show majority of Texans do not support the total abortion ban (Getty)

Failure to oust the incumbent would not be the first time O’Rourke has promised something big, only to be unable to deliver.

He fought a spirited battle against Republican Ted Cruz in 2018 to try and bag a Senate seat, losing by just 2.6 per cent in what was the closest race in Texas history.

Yet his attempt to use that platform to challenge for the presidency in 2020 was uneven, with accusations of entitlement being hurled at the former congressman. He dropped out as early as November 2019.

“Our campaign has always been about seeing clearly, speaking honestly, and acting decisively,” O’Rourke tweeted. “In that spirit: I am announcing that my service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee.”

Could 2022 be his year?  He thinks so.

In his interview on MSNBC with presenter Lawrence O’Donnell, he referred to the recent vote in Kansas, where residents voted 59-41 to reject a measure that would have removed the right to abortion.

“You and I, and the rest of your viewers saw what happened in Kansas in the dead of summer, a referendum election poll, with presidential-level turnout and we won 60-40 to support a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body and her own future,” he said.

“Well, there’s a referendum in Texas, [it] takes place on the night of November 8, and it’s this race for governor, and we’re going to win it.”