Beto O’Rourke considering run to replace Gov. Greg Abbott for governor in Texas in 2022

If the state of Texas thinks it has problems today with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants flowing across its southern border with Mexico monthly, imagine where the Lone Star state would be with unaccomplished Beto O’Rourke as governor.

With impromptu tent cities holding thousands of migrants materializing under bridges and local resources being depleted, including grocery store shelves, Texans may look back on such troubling times fondly if Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is successful in a reported run to replace Gov. Greg Abbott.

O’Rourke, who is making quite the career out of losing elections, is expected to throw his hat into the ring for a gubernatorial run later this year, according to Axios. Should the reports be true and the Democrat fall short, he will have achieved a trifecta in big-time election losses, having lost a U.S. Senate bid in 2018 to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a dismal presidential run in 2020.

The left sees O’Rourke as a “strong” high-profile candidate with national fundraising abilities network, and Axios reported that he has been working the phones, speaking with political allies to test the waters, suggesting that he’s made his decision to run.

“No decision has been made,” said David Wysong, a longtime adviser who served as O’Rourke’s chief of staff when he was in Congress. “He has been making and receiving calls with people from all over the state.”

Gilberto Hinojosa, the state chair of the Democratic Party, told Axios that O’Rourke is their “strongest” option to defeat Abbott.

“We hope that he’s going to run,” the party head said. “We think he’ll be our strongest candidate. We think he can beat Abbott, because he’s vulnerable.”

The Republican governor has been under fire on issues such as abortion rights, border security, and COVID-19 management, with Abbott opposing local mask mandates and vaccine mandates.

“His prohibition against mask and vaccination mandates have not gone over well with Texans,” Hinojosa said. “And with the abortion law, Republicans have raised the anger level of Texas women higher than anyone has ever seen before.”

With Abbott’s approval rating taking a hit in some polling, a new Dallas Morning News poll has O’Rourke within striking distance in a hypothetical matchup, trailing by jist 5 points at 37%-42%. O’Rourke faced a 12-point deficit in July.

As Axios noted, former President Donald Trump won Texas with 52% of the vote, and while that matched the margin he enjoyed in 2016, Trump had 1.2 million more votes in 2020, for a total of 5.8 million.

O’Rourke could find himself up against actor Matthew McConaughey, who has said the idea of launching a run for governor is a “true consideration.” Born in Texas, the actor resides in Austin with his family, and sees himself as “aggressively centrist.”

The Morning News poll had McConaughey 9 percentage points ahead of Abbott in a hypothetical match-up — which is fitting in our celebrity-obsessed nation.

In wishing America a happy 245th birthday on the 4th of July, McConaughey offered a politically-inspired message for the country the read like a Hollywood script one could see James Stewart reading.

“We’re basically going through puberty in comparison to other countries’ timeline, and we’re gonna go through growing pains,” he said. “We are going through growing pains. This is not an excuse, this is just the reality, and this is good, because we gotta keep learning, we got to keep maturing, we gotta keep striving, we gotta keep climbing, we gotta keep building. And we gotta make sure we maintain hope along the way, as we continue to evolve.”

Alright, alright, alright.

As for Beto, he is running in Texas and folks have not forgotten his remarks on gun control during a 2019 presidential debate: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”

Here’s a quick sampling of the waters from Twitter:

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