TX-Sen, TX-16: Confirming media reports from a few days ago, Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke announced on Friday that he would challenge GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in next year's Senate race. O'Rourke's move gives Democrats a plausible candidate who could conceivably put this race in play, but he faces exceptionally long odds in a solidly red and ginormously expensive state that hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994—the longest such streak anywhere in the nation.
For O'Rourke to have any sort of chance, a whole lot of things that are out of his control would have to go his way. In particular, he'd need 2018 to turn into a massive anti-Trump wave that fires up Democrats in droves and keeps dismayed Republicans on the couch. But as David Beard points out in a thoughtful essay making the case for O'Rourke, the last time Republicans went into a midterm with a president as unpopular as Trump occupying the White House—that would be 2006—Democrats picked up Senate seats in states like Missouri and Montana, and even made Tennessee competitive.
Everyone knows how nasty a competitor Cruz is, though, and he's more than capable of raising all the money he needs to. But Beard makes another good point: Cruz doesn't have any experience winning a contested general election. While it feels like his unctuous, loathsome presence has haunted us forever, Cruz only has two races under his belt: last year's failed presidential bid and his original run for Senate in 2012. That year, while he impressively knocked off the GOP establishment's preferred candidate, he waltzed through November. He has zero experience actually appealing to a broader audience. Does he have it in him to moderate his image even a little bit?
There are also a lot of difficult things O'Rourke has to do that he does have control over. In particular, he'll need a lot of money—$20 million to $30 million, at least. But does he have it in him to run a disciplined campaign filled with lots and lots of call time to donors? That's far from clear. A compelling new profile of O'Rourke from the Texas Tribune's Abby Livingston highlights a number of the congressman's quirky approaches to this race.
In particular, O'Rourke hasn't hired any consultants or pollsters and says he has no desire to do so, citing repeated failures to win in Texas by people who have relied on such professionals. He also says that "I'm only going to do this if we can win," yet at the same time, when asked how he can beat Cruz, he admits, "Tactically, strategically, I don't know." Those are rather contradictory thoughts.
Other details don't help matters, either. From O'Rourke's own telling, it appears that he didn't even inform his wife before he publicly began mooting a Senate bid, and she's not the only person in the dark: Few people in Texas politics know O'Rourke. As Livingston memorably puts it, O'Rourke's hometown of El Paso is "so remote it is in a separate time zone from the rest of the state. It is a shorter drive from his district to San Diego than to Beaumont," near the border with Louisiana.
Painfully, even many of those Democrats who have heard of him don't know how to pronounce his name properly, calling him "Bee-to" (it's closer to "Betto"). And even the DSCC didn't mention O'Rourke in their Friday newsletter, even though it was published after his formal kickoff.
There's also the matter of Rep. Joaquin Castro, a fellow Democrat who, like O'Rourke, was also elected to the House in 2012. Castro has also been considering a run for Senate, and as word of O'Rourke's pending announcement circulated, Castro reiterated that he's still thinking about the race. A competitive statewide Democratic primary in Texas would certainly be interesting, but it would make the already daunting quest for rivers of cash even more intimidating.
Still, whatever O'Rourke's chances may be, Democrats are fortunate to have someone in place who could take advantage of a total Republican implosion, should such a scenario unfold. And who knows? If Democrats can run the table and somehow defend all of their incumbents while picking up GOP-held seats in Nevada and Arizona, O'Rourke would give them that desperately needed shot at a third pickup to take back the Senate. It's a triple bank-shot, but every once in a rare while, you actually sink one of those.
O’Rourke’s decision also opens up his safely blue seat in the 16th Congressional District. We’ll take a look at the potential field there in the next Digest.