“When Amy and I were first talking about running for Congress in 2011-2012, we decided that we would do term limits, and not serve more than four years. In part it was, ‘I just don’t want you to be an asshole; I haven’t met somebody in this line of work who doesn’t become one, that doesn’t think that they are so important only they can do it.'”
— Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), in an interview with the Austin Chronicle, explaining why he supports term limits.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Houston Chronicle that he asked President Trump to assist him in his re-election efforts.
Said Cruz: “I would certainly welcome his support, and I hope to see him in Texas. I think we are likely to see the president down in Texas before the election.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “used a protester’s outburst Saturday to riff on how unhinged the left is, how the display of anger was evidence of the tough race he faces against Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the fall, and how it was really President Obama who colluded with Russia,” the Austin American Statesman reports.
Said Cruz: “It seems to me the very definition of cowardice is standing up and screaming like a child and being afraid to engage in any substance, not knowing any substance, which is why you’re afraid to engage in any substance, and just yelling, ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ which is what I guess the fever swamps of the left have told him.”
He added: “The irony of course is that eight years of Obama were eight years of absolute appeasement. We saw eight years of bootlicking for Vladimir Putin.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Texas finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leading challenger Beto O’Rourke (D) by just four points, 46% to 42%.
Cruz had an eight-point lead in a poll earlier this year.
Also interesting: “Once voters were told about O’Rourke’s decision to reject PAC money, he took the lead, 46% to 43%.”
A new Texas Lyceum Poll finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leading challenger to O’Rourke (D) by a hair, 41% to 39% among likely voters.
That’s well within the survey’s margin of error of 4.67 percentage points.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Cruz leading by six points, 49% to 43%.
Town & Country: “It’s not just the toothy grin, the tall stature, and the shock of hair swept over his brow. With a disdain for highly paid consultants, a willingness to travel to unexpected places, and an inspiring message for an extraordinarily divided electorate, it’s hard to look at O’Rourke and not think of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. He has been to all of Texas’s 254 counties — including ones no Democratic candidate has seriously contested in decades. If he can meet every person, knock on every door, he thinks he can win.”
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), who is challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), told the Dallas Morning News that President Trump’s performance at a summit with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin merits impeachment.
Said O’Rourke: “Standing on stage in another country with the leader of another country who wants to and has sought to undermine this country, and to side with him over the United States – if I were asked to vote on this I would vote to impeach the president. Impeachment, much like an indictment, shows that there is enough there for the case to proceed and at this point there is certainly enough there for the case to proceed.”
A new Texas Tribune poll finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leads challenger Beto O’Rourke by just five points in the U.S. Senate race, 41% to 36%.
A new CBS News poll in Texas finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R) leading challenger Beto O’Rourke (D) by ten points in the U.S. Senate race, 50% to 40%.
A new Quinnipiac poll in Texas finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leading challenger Beto O’Rourke (D) by double-digits, 50% to 39%.
Said pollster Peter Brown: “Cruz, apparently benefiting from a nationwide Republican mini-move, has taken a solid lead in his reelection race. President Trump’s Texas numbers also have climbed during those six weeks moving from a nine point deficit on job approval to an even split today. It is hard not to see a pro- Cruz effect there.”
A new JMC Analytics poll in Texas finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R) leading challenger Beto O’Rourke (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 40%.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to participate in six debates across Texas, two of them in Spanish, during their U.S. Senate race, the Texas Tribune reports.
A new Quinnipiac poll in Texas finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) just ahead of challenger Beto O’Rourke (D), 47% to 44%.
“Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) knew, at the outset, that his campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) would be a long shot. Texas had not voted for a Democratic senator in 25 years, O’Rourke didn’t have statewide name recognition, and, moreover, he was pledging to run without taking money from political action committees—a potentially healthy spigot of campaign funds that he would be foregoing,” the Daily Beast reports.
“To overcome those odds, the Texas Democrat and his top aides placed a major bet on a novel strategy: they would dramatically break down the barriers between candidate and voter. O’Rourke would make heavy use of social media to essentially broadcast otherwise mundane daily functions. And he would treat the often-pesky task of campaign fundraising as an ongoing conversation rather than a plea for cash.”
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) raised over $6.7 million for his U.S. Senate bid in the first quarter of 2018, “a staggering number that poses a new category of threat” to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Texas Tribune reports.
“The haul is easily O’Rourke’s biggest fundraising quarter yet, more than double his next-closest total for a three-month period. It also is more than any Democratic Senate candidate nationwide took in last quarter, O’Rourke’s campaign said.”
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]And that’s without taking any PAC money.[/alert]
Karl Rove: “Just as the media buildup about Democratic early voting fell short, so did the party’s highly touted U.S. Senate hopeful, Rep. Robert F. ‘Beto’ O’Rourke. National Democrats have hyped the telegenic El Paso congressman as a strong bet to upset Ted Cruz, the state’s junior senator. Mr. O’Rourke spent $4.2 million to win his primary with 62%. But he lost 103 of the state’s 254 counties to Edward Kimbrough, a retired Postal Service employee, who spent $785 and received 15%, and Sema Hernandez, who spent nothing—zero, zip, nada—and still got 24%. (Ms. Hernandez did have a Facebook page.) Mr. Cruz received twice as many votes in his primary as Mr. O’Rourke did in his.”
“It has been 24 years since Democrats won a statewide race in Texas. Absent a major GOP scandal, they’ll continue that losing streak this year as their statewide ticket is lackluster and—with the exception of Mr. O’Rourke—underfunded.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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