I was, and still am, a huge Beto fan and while I’d hoped that he’d win, I wasn’t expecting it. In fact, since the last Dem was beaten by Cruz by 16 points, I thought that it would be remarkable if Beto came within 10 points while hoping for 5. In fact, he came in behind Cruz by 2.6 points, which is just 219,427 votes and that’s a BFD here in Texas politics.
Here are some other interesting factoids on Beto:
- “A CNN exit poll showed that O’Rourke beat Cruz among native Texans, 51 percent to 48 percent. In contrast, 57 percent of people who had moved to Texas said they voted for Cruz, compared to 42 percent who voted for O’Rourke.”
- “Before Trump’s visit, Cruz’s internal numbers had him leading by double digits statewide. In the days after, his lead dropped to 5 points.”
- “Beto, with his lefty positions, won a greater percentage of Republican and self-identified conservative voters than McCaskill, Donnelly, Bredesen, and Heitkamp – all of whom staked out centrist and even GOP positions. He also won independents by 50-47, and moderates by 65-34.”
- “Beto helped draw so many Texas Democrats to the polls that they swept Republican judges out of office. Now every elected judge in the state’s biggest county is a Democrat, and they’re ready for some much-needed bail reform.”
- “Beto O’Rourke did what Hillary Clinton and other Democrats could not – he won Fort Worth’s Tarrant County by a statistical hair, a shocker in a reliably red county.”
And that’s on top of the GOP trying to scare voters away with photos of Beto in a grunge-dress:
Popular identity politics activist and self-described “deplorable” and “Tea Party Original” GOP candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, who was narrowly re-elected, called Beto a “sweet young thing in [a] flowered dress.”
Tags: Beto Republicans Transphobia