On Monday, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke officially announced that he is running for Texas governor in 2022 after losing his campaign for U.S. Senate in 2018 and losing his campaign for the presidency in 2020.
“I am running for governor to serve ALL of the people of Texas,” he said in his announcement. “I believe that the only way we are going to achieve great things for this state is by looking out for each other and moving forward together.”
I’m running for governor.
Together, we can push past the small and divisive politics that we see in Texas today — and get back to the big, bold vision that used to define Texas. A Texas big enough for all of us.
Join us: https://t.co/eMY5wwf6an pic.twitter.com/yrG1WOkpqk
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) November 15, 2021
O’Rourke said that he wants to fight against the “fringe policies and incompetence that we see in Texas today.” He told Texas Monthly that he was upset about some of current Texas Governor Abbott’s education policies, like preventing biological males from competing in girls’ sports in schools.
“I want to serve this state and try to bring the people of Texas together to do some of the really big work that is before us and get past this smallness and divisiveness that Greg Abbott has brought to Texas,” O’Rourke said. “You see it in the things he wants us to focus on right now, like which girls can play which sports in middle school, or what history teachers in public schools can teach.”
O’Rourke also commented on his repeated losses, including the 2018 election in Texas for U.S. Senate, saying that election – which he lost – was “seen as just as hopeless.”
“But if we think about 2018 now, at the outset of that race, it was seen as just as hopeless, but at the end of it, together, we produced the largest voter turnout in a midterm since 1970, and a five hundred percent increase in young voter turnout,” O’Rourke said.
