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.”
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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.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) re-election campaign released a 60-second radio ad that was a country music jingle prodding O’Rourke for going by “Beto” rather than “Robert,” CNN reports.
Said the song: “Liberal Robert wanted to fit in, so he changed his name to Beto and hid it with a grin.”
O’Rourke responded saying he’s gone by “Beto” since he was born.
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]Of course, Cruz’s real name is Rafael Edward Cruz and he goes by the nickname “Ted.”[/alert]
“Voters in Texas on Tuesday are setting up a showdown that Democrats hope will lead to their first victory in a statewide election there since 1994, with Rep. Beto O’Rourke vying to compete for the Senate seat of Republican Ted Cruz,” the Washington Post reports.
“It’s a daunting task for O’Rourke, 45, a three-term congressman. But there are signs he could at least keep November’s election close, including an impressive early-vote turnout among Democrats for Tuesday’s primaries, robust fundraising reports and polls showing declines in popularity for Cruz and President Trump. Neither O’Rourke nor Cruz is facing serious competition in Tuesday’s primaries.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) fundraising lagged far behind challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) during the first six weeks of 2018, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Cruz raised $800,000 through Feb. 14. That’s well below O’Rourke’s $2.3 million haul.
New York Times: “It has been so bleak for Democrats in Texas that they define victory in terms of the size of their losses. A running joke in Mr. O’Rourke’s speeches is that he has almost convinced his mother, Melissa, a Republican, to vote for him.”
“But there is power in the giant-killer narrative and signs that his anti-campaign playbook campaign is working. He raised $2.4 million in the last quarter, and gets applause when he notes that was $500,000 more than Mr. Cruz took in.”
“He has a restless energy that has put him in 217 of Texas 254 counties, driving tens of thousands of miles, fueled by bad coffee and Hostess cupcakes that supporters bring him.”
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) raised $2.4 million last quarter in his effort to oust Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Dallas Morning News reports.
“It’s the second time O’Rourke has out-raised the Republican favorite in a single fundraising quarter. Following O’Rourke’s news, the Cruz campaign announced it brought in $1.9 million in the final quarter of 2017.”
Also interesting: “O’Rourke has sworn off the help of political action committees. According to the campaign, more than 70 percent of the last quarter’s donations came from Texas, and none of the funds came from loans.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is leading challenger Beto O’Rourke by 8 points, 45% to 37%. Eighteen percent of voters remain undecided.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map 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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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