Beto O’Rourke, Democratic Dreamboat, Is Getting His Ass Kicked in Texas
As Bernie Sanders demonstrated in 2016, a massive, sustained influx of grassroots cash does not guarantee victory.
by
Tina Nguyen
October 12, 2018 4:12 pm
The most spectacular part of the Beto O’Rourke narrative—beyond the fact that he’s come within spitting distance of Ted Cruz in a Texas Senate race, or that he’s a skateboarding Kennedy doppelgänger, or that he may be the most exciting thing to happen to today’s sluggish Democratic Party—is that he’s somehow managed to manifest all of these qualities in his money game. O’Rourke first shocked the country when he consistently out-raised his well-financed rival, often more than doubling Cruz’s numbers, largely through small donations. On Friday, O’Rourke announced another eye-popping sum for his final-quarter haul: $38.1 million, the all-time, single-quarter record for any Senate candidate in history. “The people of Texas in all 254 counties are proving that when we reject PACs and come together not as Republicans or Democrats but as Texans and Americans, there’s no stopping us,†he said in a statement. (Cruz, by comparison, raised $12 million.)
But as Bernie Sanders demonstrated back in 2016, a massive, sustained influx of grassroots cash does not guarantee victory, and the numbers are there to prove it: though O’Rourke certainly has the cash and the press to elevate his profile, he still lags behind Cruz by a considerable margin. The Real Clear Politics average for October places Cruz ahead of O’Rourke by an average of 7 points, citing polls from The New York Times (which has him up by 8 points) and Quinnipiac (up by 9 points), among others. While it’s not the double-digit margin Republicans usually boast in Texas, it’s wide enough that election watchers are largely placing Texas in the “leaning red†category—that is, barring a completely possible last-minute surprise.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/beto-orourke-fundraising-record-ted-cruz
