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Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is canvassing the Lone Star State by visiting 20 cities in 12 days, looking to drum up excitement ahead of next month’s primaries, in which he faces an uphill battle to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Yahoo News connected with O’Rourke and attendees at the Waco and Austin rally stop to understand what’s at stake in the race.
Video Transcript
– (SINGING) I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on.
BETO O’ ROURKE: And I want to make sure that this is crystal clear– not better as Democrats, not better as Republicans, not better as independents, but as Texans, as Americans, and as human beings who are good to one another, kind to each other, give each other the respect and dignity that we deserve.
– (SINGING) To lean on. Lean on me,
BETO O’ ROURKE: I think folks are sick and tired of us being divided and pitted against one another. They want to see us come together and do big things in this state.
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MARQUISE FRANCIS: For the past two election cycles, Texas’ Beto O’Rourke has come up short, both in 2018 and in 2020. But in 2022, he’s looking to do what most think is impossible– become the first Democratic governor in this state since 1990. Yahoo News traveled to both Waco and Austin to talk to voters and Beto himself, about what it’s going to take to do what most say he can’t.
You served six years in the House. And you ran in 2018 also, for presidential election. And you came up short. I was there in El Paso in 2018. I saw the fervor around you, also know just throughout the state. Critics would say there was a blue wave in 2018. And there was anti-Trump sentiment. Now there’s an anti-Biden sentiment, which is growing particularly in Texas. So what do you feel like you can do to get over that hump, and what makes this time different?
BETO O’ ROURKE: We’ve got to make sure that this election is about Texas and the people of Texas, and not about Donald Trump or Joe Biden or really anybody else. This is ours to decide. What we’ve seen, and it’s been pretty clear, is it on any of the issues that matter to us, no one from outside of Texas is riding to our rescue.
MARQUISE FRANCIS: You talked a lot about education and the need to make sure that youth here have everything they need. There’s also been a concerted effort by Republicans to push this idea of critical race theory. And Sam Houston is obviously an icon in this region. And he had a complicated history with slavery, but he did own human beings. Do you feel as though youth here should learn about Sam Houston and the fact that he owned slaves?
BETO O’ ROURKE: Absolutely, I think we should know the full story of Texas and the full story of the United States of America, not only our founding ideals and principles, but the way that those ideals and principles were often violated by the people who wrote them, or the fact that so much of the wealth and opportunity in this state was actually created by people who had no choice in the deal whatsoever. I know that we are a strong people. I know that we’re strong enough to handle the truth and to grow from that and to be better, and also not to repeat the same mistakes, which we are bound to do unless we learn our history.
You look at what happened just after Reconstruction and the fact that 50% of the elected officials in Fort Bend County were Black at the end of Reconstruction, and you had the beginning of the Jaybird all white Democratic primary, which not only served as a filter against Black political participation, but turned into violent armed insurrection against Black officeholders. And literally, the African-American people in positions of public trust were driven out of the county. And not just that, but through a perverse reading of the 13th Amendment, began to see the arrest of Black men and Black boys to serve on sugar plantations.
And the system of convict leasing basically built the foundation of Imperial Sugar and Sugar Land in Fort Bend and so much of the wealth in that area. We should know that history. that’s in large part, how Texas was built. And if we don’t, then we’re trafficking in myths and things that just are not true.
Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.
MARQUISE FRANCIS: You notoriously said you will take the AR-15’s from Texans but you’ve also talked about sensible gun control. And guns are very popular in this state. How do you balance that through line?
BETO O’ ROURKE: Just like every Texan, I understand that we can both defend the Second Amendment and do a far better job of protecting the lives of those in our communities. Like most Texans, I grew up with guns. I grew up with not just learning how to fire and use them, but the responsibility that comes with owning them. I think that’s true for most of us in Texas.
So let’s find the common ground on things like universal background checks or safe storage laws. These are things that not only Democrats, but Republicans support as well, gun owners and non-gun owners alike. I think that’s the way forward that protects the Second Amendment and protects more lives of the people in this state.
MARQUISE FRANCIS: Growing up in El Paso, I know you speak Spanish. You make sure to infuse that into a lot of your speeches. I believe you got about 63% of the vote in 2018. Obviously, you need to grow that to get over the hump. And what do you feel like you need to do different? Because a lot of these Latino voters voted for Trump, and so they’ve kind of turned away. How can you kind of bring them back?
BETO O’ ROURKE: I want to make sure that while acknowledging that some Latino voters voted for Trump in 2020, in Texas overwhelmingly, they voted for Biden. And I say that just because I think sometimes there is blame assessed on one group of voters over another for outcomes. By and large, Latino voters supported President Biden and supported other Democrats across the state and across the country.
But you if the great crime committed by Republicans traditionally has been to seek to disenfranchise voters of color and specifically Black voters in Mexican-American voters in the state of Texas, then that committed by Democrats has been to take those voters for granted and to say, because of your ethnicity or the color of your skin or the way that your parents voted, you’re going to vote the same way. And we can’t take anybody for granted. We got to show up and earn those votes each and every single time.
And so my lesson learned from ’18, from ’20, from just being Texan, is that you’ve got to be there and meet people where they are. And that’s the only way to run. It’s certainly the only way that we’re going to win. And it’s the best way to serve if I’m governor.
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– I really would like for you know Texas to become a blue state. And I think he’s willing to do that for us as well too. And I know he has a voice for that. I know this is where I was going to go for. Because I’ve never cried.
Listening to Beto, it made me tear up, and I’m still tearing. So to know that there’s somebody out there, a candidate, who’s willing to speak for my audience, that’s something to me. Because I’m still young. And I get very emotional, so I apologize.
– Democracy is nonexistent in some people’s mind. But I believe in democracy. And so I’m hoping he can make that change or put it back where it was, better it.
– The main issue to me is voting rights, voters rights. If we can’t vote, nothing else matters. Democracy is gone.
It’ll be a one-party state. That’s how they’re engineering it. If they don’t like the result, they overturn it. That’s in the law.
BETO O’ ROURKE: I know democracy is under attack. You see it nowhere more so than in the state of Texas, where it is harder to register or cast a ballot than in any other state. And it is insulting to all of us, knowing how many Texans have been willing to risk and in fact, in some cases, have lost their lives to defend and expand this democracy from just these kinds of attacks. When I’m governor, I’m going to make sure that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, if you’re a citizen and you’re eligible, there will be no obstacle to voting in Texas.
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