TEXAS GOV.'S RACE TIGHTENS: GUNS, ABORTION, INFLATION

By J. David Goodman

New York Times

SUGAR LAND, Texas — One of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The revival of a 1920s ban on abortion. The country’s worst episode of migrant death in recent memory. And an electrical grid, which failed during bitter cold, now straining under soaring heat.

The unrelenting succession of death and difficulty facing Texans over the last two months has soured them on the direction of the state, hurting Gov. Greg Abbott and making the race for governor perhaps the most competitive since Democrats last held that office in the 1990s.

Polls have shown a tightening, single-digit contest between Mr. Abbott, the two-term incumbent, and his ubiquitous Democratic challenger, the former congressman Beto O’Rourke. Mr. O’Rourke is now raising more campaign cash than Mr. Abbott — $27.6 million to $24.9 million in the last filing — in a race that is likely to be among the most expensive of 2022.

Suddenly, improbably, perhaps unwisely, Texas Democrats are again daring to think — as they have in many recent election years — that maybe this could be the year.

“It seems like some of the worst things that are happening in this country have their roots in Texas,” said James Talarico, a Democratic state representative from north of Austin. “We’re seeing a renewed fighting spirit.”

At the same time, the winds of national discontent are whipping hard in the other direction, against Democrats. Texans, like many Americans, have felt the strain of rising inflation and have a low opinion of President Biden. 

Unlike four years ago, when Mr. O’Rourke challenged Senator Ted Cruz and nearly won during a midterm referendum on President Donald J. Trump that lifted Democrats, now it is Republicans who are animated by animus toward the White House and poised to make gains in state races.

But in recent weeks there has been a perceptible shift in Texas, as registered in several public polls and some internal campaign surveys, after the school shooting in Uvalde that killed 19 children and two teachers and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that brought back into force a 1925 law banning all abortions except when the woman’s life is at risk.

“Dobbs at the margins has hurt Republicans in Texas. Uvalde at the margins has hurt Republicans in Texas. The grid has hurt Republicans in Texas,” said Mark P. Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University who helped conduct one recent poll. “Biden and inflation have been their saving grace.”

Most voters polled did not rank guns or abortion among their top issues in the recent survey, by the
University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, but many of Mr. O’Rourke’s supporters did, suggesting the issues could help to energize his voters, Mr. Jones said.

And the issue of gun control was a top concern among another group that Republicans have been fighting hard to win away from Democrats: Hispanic women.

A separate poll, conducted by the University of Texas at Austin and released this month, showed 59 percent of respondents thought Texas was on the “wrong track,” the highest number in more than a decade of asking that question. Another, from Quinnipiac University, found Mr. O’Rourke within 5 percentage points of the governor.

As the new polls showed Mr. O’Rourke’s numbers improving, Mr. Abbott’s campaign convened a conference call with reporters this month.

“We’re straight on track, where we want to be,” said Dave Carney, the governor’s campaign strategist, adding that their strategy still involved tying Mr. O’Rourke to Mr. Biden and reminding voters of Mr. O’Rourke’s positions on gun control, police reform and the oil industry during his unsuccessful run in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

“He’s going to be reliving the spectacular disaster of running for president and all the things he said,” Mr. Carney said. “Believe me, he liked to talk and it’s all on video and it’s all contrary to what are the values and what the vast majority of Texans believe.”

That approach has been part of Mr. Abbott’s message from the beginning, particularly on the issue of guns. In one of the first attacks on Mr. O’Rourke, the Abbott campaign highlighted his vow during the presidential campaign to take away AR-15 rifles.

Those comments came during a Democratic primary debate in 2019 that occurred soon after a deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Mr. O’Rourke’s hometown and where he served as a U.S. congressman.

After the elementary school massacre in Uvalde in May, Mr. O’Rourke responded with a similarly risky political gambit: interrupting a news conference held in Uvalde the day after the shooting to directly challenge Mr. Abbott over his record on guns. “This is on you,” Mr. O’Rourke said.

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